Only Son
by Camiara
Summary: James Kidd wanted an easy year. He wasn't prepared for who he would be roomed with.
1. Chapter 1

I didn't know what the meaning of a shit-eating grin was until I walked into my dorm that afternoon.

The entire ordeal of getting myself into the Welsh boarding school of St. Gerard's had been nigh on unspeakable. That day had been probably the easiest for me out of all of it, and even then, trying to pass off my forged note saying that I wasn't gonna drop dead in the next 48 hours was difficult, mainly because nobody had heard of Doctor Read before. Nevertheless, they let the humble orphaned boy known as James Kidd pass the final stages of registration, and I was assigned to room 104 in Jackdaw Hall.

_Piss poor name for a building. _

I had wanted to start my eleventh year somewhere better than the fucking public schools that my foster families had sent me to, so I had found a loophole in the laws for residences of underaged orphans, and tested into a scholarship at St. Gerard's Private School for Boys in Swansea, Wales. _Shitty place to have a boarding' school. _Swansea isn't exactly renowned for… anything, really. At least from what I had heard. I'd spent so much of my life alone, usually working odd jobs that neighborhood families needed help with, but never having more than the minimal interaction. Was anymore than that necessary?

I walked down the oak paneled hallways of Jackdaw Hall to where I knew my room, and roommate, awaited me. Our room was at the end of the first hallway, and as I drew near, I could make out our last names stenciled on the top of the doorframe. _Kidd and… Kenway? _My brow furrowed. I didn't like the sound of that name. Sighing dramatically, I noticed the muffled sound of…

_You've got to be fuckin' kidding me. _

I opened my door and was greeted with a dubstep remix of "Seven Nation Army."

"Oy!" I shouted before I had even fully stepped inside. A tanned boy with messy blonde locks tied behind his head looked over from a bookshelf that he was apparently attempting to organize and raised an eyebrow.

"You're Kidd, I presume?" he began, attempting to be neutral. He had a noticeable Welsh accent.

"Listen here, ya cunt-hole," I snarled, starting upon him, "Seven Nation Army is a wonderful fuckin' song, and I'll be blasted to hell and back twice over if I'm ta let ya ruin it for me, ya hear?" I ended with my eyebrows knotted together and my finger in his face.

And he gave me that shit eating grin.

The tension was palpable, until the ethereal crooning of Florence and the Machine replaced the other shit. He chuckled low in his chest, and my eyes narrowed as I straightened up, and resumed normal greeting procedure. "Aye, I'm James Kidd. And before you ask, yes, I'm related to the captain. Now who's shit goes where, you deaf twat?"

The blonde stood up and dusted his hands on his jeans, more out of habit than of any real need to do so. He was only wearing socks on his feet, but since he had apparently been here long before me, it seemed only right. His jeans looked like they had seen a few years, and his white T-shirt sported a red stylized bird flying from his left hip to his right shoulder. His hair, had it not been tied back, probably would have just brushed his broad shoulders. He had a whalebone necklace and tattoos on his arms that would probably have made more than one professor raise an eye, were they not covered by the uniform that would be required when school started. Small scars could be found on every inch of exposed skin, the kind that were gotten only from physical labor. His eyes, the dark blue of the North Atlantic, had a simultaneous air of arrogance and mischief to them, and his face had a bit of a beard on it. I guessed that might also cause a bit of a problem, but you could never tell with these Welsh schools. Fucked right up the ass, each and every one of them.

"I'm Edward. And as you can see-" he gestured about the room "-I've all but finished unpacking, so it's up to you to put your stuff where you want it. My bed's by the window." He pursed his lips, and obviously remembered what else there was to say. "Communal bathrooms for this floor are down the hall. We have a sink, but toilets and showers are down there."

_Shit. _I'd have to watch myself in there.

He must've noticed that I had changed something, because he offered, "They're kept awfully clean, so it's not like you'll be pickin' up anything too nasty in there."

I grumbled and turned my back to him to set about unpacking. I could almost hear him shrug, and he sat down and went back to his bookshelf just as a driving piano melody began.

"_I must go on standing._

_You can't break that which isn't yours._

_I must go on standing._

_I'm not my own, _

_It's not my choice."_

I didn't recognize the song. Maneuvering my trunk to the foot of my bet, I gritted my teeth as I began to think of ways to survive the rest of the night, let alone the entire year.


	2. Chapter 2

The night of my arrival had been an interesting one. I'd been too pissed off for the first three or four hours to do anything other than unpack my things and study the maps of the campus. Our room was cozy at best, and obscenely cramped at worst. The school had made an effort to make the room as modern as it could; however, the sizes of most rooms weren't exactly fit for having multiple people living in there. As such, Kenway and I spent the better part of our first night together tripping over each other.

The door opened up into a small hall in the southwest corner of the L-shaped room, in which there was a small sink station, complete with cabinets and a mirror. Further inside was Kenway's desk, pressed right up against the south wall. Two windows were on the east wall, and one—the one above his desk—could be seen straight through from the entryway. His bed was nestled against the north wall, underneath the second window, with his bookshelf at the foot, squashed between his desk and the bed. Two additional storage shelves hung on the wall above his bed, with a miniscule dresser to its right. The heater was between the dresser and my desk. The short west wall touched my bookshelf, dresser, and bed.

In the first forty-five minutes, Kenway was visited by no less than three of his acquaintances barge in and fuck up my relative peace. The first was a hulking African gent that must've been held back at least three times. Kenway introduced him as Adéwalé Kresh, and explained that he had been his roommate until I'd come around. Adé stuck around for a good ninety minutes, until the other two arrived. At that point, Adé had stood up and seen himself out. The other two were the haughty Benjamin Hornigold and Charles Vane with the gravelly voice. Kenway and Vane seemed to have a rather… aggressive relationship, and his visit ended with them screaming obscenities of rapidly increasing severity at each other until Hornigold took it upon himself to bid us both goodnight.

Those two left right before curfew, and Kenway's long sigh after he locked the door behind the both of them made me realize that, to my disdain, I would have to socialize with him. _No excuses anymore, I guess._

He plopped on his bed and sighed again. I looked up from my desk and cocked an eyebrow. "Sorry about that," he said, grinning apologetically. I almost believed him. "Adé's an old friend, and Ben and Charles and I usually are civil enough." He paused. "Bastard just gets under my skin on purpose." He laid back on his bed. "So what's your story, Captain?"

"There ain't one, really," I began, turning my chair to face him. His eyes were on the ceiling, but the tension in his body showed that he was truly interested. That, or he was feigning interest with expert precision. He scoffed. _Fuck_. "My mum died when I was ten, and I've been jumpin' around in foster homes until I got myself in here. That's it." He propped himself up on his elbows and gave me a look that told me he knew I wasn't telling it all. _Fuck._

"Where does the Kidd come from, though?" he asked.

"My dad's last name was Kidd, you dumb fuck." I rolled my eyes. "Mum married into it."

"Rude."

"That's rich, coming from the one who said things that would've made a pirate blush not five minutes ago."

He laughed, and I felt a strange sense of accomplishment at that. "What about you?" I inquired.

Kenway shrugged. "I'm from Swansea. My parents moved away when I was 4 or 5, and I lived with Adé on my parent's money because I reallydidn't want to leave. It's my home, y'know?" He grinned ruefully. "Besides, they visited all the time. Anyway, Adé's parents sent him here, and I followed along, because my parents could afford it." He looked down at his scarred arms. "Dad got sick, and Mum stopped sending money. I wasn't leaving Adé, though. I started taking up jobs that no one else wanted to do. It sucked, but I was able to do it." He looked up again. "And I'm here now, so that's all well."

"What in god's name is up with your music?" I asked abruptly, as a troubling guitar piece began playing from the speakers on his dresser.

He scoffed. "I play bass, piano, and violin. Those instruments get you into a lot of different shit." He paused, and thought about it for a moment. "I suppose, though, that I like powerful music. Y'know?"

I had to laugh. "You're a fuckin' weirdo." Then, "What time do classes start in the morning, again?"

Kenway looked at the clock. "Shit." He jumped up from his bed, grabbed a toothbrush and toothpaste from his dresser, and hightailed it for the bathrooms.

And of course I took this opportunity to get myself ready for bed. I opened my dresser and pulled out the black Jolly Roger t-shirt and sweatpants I usually used as pyjamas. Taking a deep breath, I calculated approximately how much time I'd have before he got back. I decided that I might as well get it over with, and yanked my shirt off over my head before hurriedly wiggling out of the tight sports bra that I wore.

Now, a woman can't do jack shit in this world. Never has been, never will be able to. I've known that since I was knee high to a katydid. I'd had an older brother by the name of James Kidd. He was the sailor's son. I'd been born simply as Mary Read, the fatherless child of a money-hungry whore. James was only a year older than me, and he'd been the one getting money from his grandmother. My mum hid my birth from the old bitch and when James died, I took his place. The money kept coming, and, even after they both died, I kept it up. I know I'm a girl, of course, and I've never questioned that; it's just easier to not be one.

Anyway, praising the lord that I'm flat chested anyway, I slid into the t-shirt and stepped out of my jeans into the sweats. I finished up at the sink just as Kenway opened the door.

"I'm noddin' off," I stated, making my way back towards my bed. He nodded and turned out the lights in the main room, leaving only the light in the entryway for him to undress by.

I noticed immediately that his body was a canvas of tattoos, but they were completely unlike any I'd seen. From where I lay, I couldn't make out much, but they looked very old fashioned and traditional. There were several that were only partially visible, because they either meandered from his muscled back, which was towards me, to the front of his body, or snaked tantalizingly below the waist of his box—

I snapped my eyes shut and rolled over to face the wall.

_Fuck._


	3. Chapter 3

Monday morning found my phone's alarm going off at five o'clock. Classes didn't start for another two hours. I groped blindly in an attempt to silence the obnoxious ringing before it woke up Kenway. Scrubbing at my face, I sat up and waited for my eyes to adjust to what little light found its way through our blinds from the lamps outside, and heard Kenway sigh and roll over in his bed, only marginally troubled by my alarm. I could just barely make out his heavy eyebrows knotted together in his sleep, as though there was some imperative crisis in his dream that he was struggling to solve. Trying to not notice that he apparently slept shirtless, I stood up and made my way to my desk, where I had left my uniform the night before. My trainers somehow made their way onto my feet as I shuffled out the door and towards the bathrooms.

I absolutely loathe waking up early, and everyone else should, too. We're meant to wake up when the sun rises, and if I'm to do anything before then, it had better be for good reason, and involve me all by myself. The only reason I dragged my happy ass out of bed before six was because I needed to be sure that I'd be by myself to at least get dressed.

Which is why I was rather less-than-pleased to see the bathrooms already inhabited by Vane. He appeared to just be finishing up his routine and preparing to leave, but upon hearing the door open, looked up and grinned in the dim light at me.

"I thought I was the only one fucked up enough to wake up this early for school."

My eyes narrowed in a way that showed that I had no patience for him right now. "If you're done, _please _leave. I'm in no mood ta hold conversations with anyone."

Vane feigned offense and held up his hands. "Exc_uuuu_se me, Captain Kidd." He gathered up his belongings and headed towards the door. "I didn't know you were on your period," he said over his shoulder as he stepped out the door.

Now, that just rubbed me the wrong way, and understandably so. "Piss off, jackass," I snarled, throwing my uniform's shoes at the door as it closed behind him. Giving an exasperated sigh, I started getting myself dressed into the horridly plain uniform consisting of the stereotypical khaki slacks and navy blazer, coupled with black leather shoes. _Fright_fully boring.

I was completely presentable by five-thirty, and boys began filing in just as I slipped out. _Plenty of time for breakfast. _I still had an hour and a half before I had to be in my first class, so I went back to my room, intending to grab my bookbag and laptop. I was only mildly surprised to find it empty; I must've somehow missed Kenway in transit between the bathroom and here.

The only thing I ate at the hall's cafeteria was an orange accompanied by a glass of milk, and spent the rest of the time reviewing my first day's schedule.

Monday had us going to all seven of our classes, with sixty-five minutes per period, and twenty minutes of lunch between D and E period where we reported back to our residence halls' cafeteria. A period was Aquaculture with Stahl, B was Advanced Physics with Allen, C was Calculus with McNeil, D was American Literature with Wollhaven, E was Nautical History with Thatch. F, while marked only as "barn" on my schedule, was where I took care of the horse I'd be assigned today. Finally, G period was Arabic with Mualim.

_Not too bad._

Six fifty-five found me comfortably situated in my classroom, admiring from my table the fish dancing in the tanks on the other side of the room. I didn't recognize anyone in the room so far, but there were still several empty seats.

"Oy."

I tore my eyes away from the fish to see none other than Kenway walking towards me, his entire body language screaming "I don't know another soul in this room. _Please _let me sit with you." I pulled out the chair, and he took it gratefully. I hated to admit it, but the way he looked in his uniform, his rugged physical appearance in such blatant juxtaposition to the neatness of the clothing, was almost endearing.

"Fancy seeing you here, Kenway," I sneered, "still looking sleek and mean. You look like a dandy in that costume."

"Rest assured, Kidd, I'm anything but." He grinned wryly.

"D'you have any other classes with me?" I asked almost automatically, pulling out my schedule from the pocket of my blazer.

Kenway was silent for a moment while he examined my schedule. "Erm, yes. Lunch, and Nautical History, E period." He looked up at me, his azure eyes meeting my own. "Adé and Vane and Hornigold all have it that period, too. I saw them all this morning."

_Vane. _I groaned internally. "Wonderful."

"Where were you this morning, by the way?" he asked. "You weren't in the room when I woke up, and I didn't see you at all in the hall."

"I'm… an early bird." _Lying through your teeth. _"I like to wake up early and get ready so I can take my time." My eyebrows came together. "I was in the hall all morning; I didn't see you, either."

"Huh." He looked ready to say something else, but stopped at the last moment.

Stahl, a bubbly woman with short dark curls, stepped to the front of the room moments later, and spoke without so much as stopping for breath on the importance of aquaculture in today's world. Her energy made me almost sad to leave for my B period class.

I had Advanced Physics as my second class, and with no one else I knew in the room, I decided to sit next to a certain Jack Rackham. _He looks and smells stoned out of his mind, _I noticed as I settled into my chair. Towards the end of Allen's introduction, he looked at me, and blinked once before snapping his eyes wide open as though he was seeing straight through some great ruse. I looked at him out of the corner of my left eye and raised an eyebrow. He took note of that, and grinned knowingly.

_Fuck no. _

When we were released, I hauled ass to Calculus.

Vane was in there, and I made sure to sit as far away from him as possible. McNeil was a doddering old woman who couldn't properly pour herself a glass of tea, but was a magician with math. Having absolutely no idea what to do with calculus, I foresaw an interesting year in that department.

D period American literature was nothing special. Wollhaven, having moved to Swansea only in the last year, was an ambitious young gentleman who hoped to have his series of historical fictions based off of the long-dead Knights Templar published in the near future.

I felt a pit grow in my stomach as lunch drew near, and I couldn't tell why. When the bell rang, I had to keep myself from running to the Jackdaw Hall cafeteria. It was relatively close by, and I wasn't terribly hungry. I opened the double doors, and was somewhat disappointed at the lack of people. There were only about ten or fifteen small groups of friends seated at round tables. I spotted Rackham, Vane, and Hornigold across the hall, the two former conversing animatedly.

I was beginning to panic when I couldn't find Kenway, until a large hand settled on my shoulder, and I turned to see Kenway himself. "Adé and I are over there," he said, nodding his head towards a nearby table. "Feel free to join us."

"Aye, thanks," I responded heartily, and followed him to the table.


	4. Chapter 4

Adé nodded his head in greeting as I deposited my bag in the chair across from him. I nodded back before looking to Kenway to see what to do next.

"Adé's got his food already," Kenway began, "but I was waiting to make sure you made it here alright to get mine."

"How gentlemanly of you," I returned, grinning. He slugged me playfully on the shoulder before striding towards the order window. I quickly followed.

"The best part about living in Jackdaw is that there's never any lines," he remarked as we waited for one of the women in the kitchen to come over. "Most people don't want to live in the building named after what they perceive as the crow's half-assed cousin." He leaned down and whispered into my ear, grinning conspiratorially. "What they don't know is that we actually have the nicest living quarters and the best food." He straightened up once a redheaded girl who couldn't've been more than a year out of school came to serve us, his shit-eating grin still on his face.

I liked that grin.

"'ey there, Edward," the redhead said in an Irish lilt. "Ya want the usual?"

"Bloody hell, Anne." He shook his head. "Mind like a steel trap. Aye, I'll take the usual."

"Taters n' all?"

"Just like always."

Anne nodded, then looked to me. "What'll it be for you, lad?" she asked, putting in the last word for no apparent reason.

"I'll just have some leek soup, please," I offered, not missing a beat. She winked at me, then walked off into the back of the kitchen. I looked up at Kenway and my eyes widened.

"Don't worry, Kidd, she's got her eyes set on Jack Rackham over there," he chuckled, nodding his head in the direction of Jack and his crew. "I will say, though," he added, "Anne has a special talent for seeing things about people that they don't want others to see."

_Jesus fucking Christ. I've had more people see through me in one day than I've had in six years of this shit. _"I was actually more surprised by the two of you bein' on a first name basis," I said.

"Oh." Anne was back with our food (Kenway had ordered steamed cockles with mashed potatoes, which wasn't something I cared to investigate), so we grabbed our trays and made our way back to the table, where he didn't continue until we were seated. "She's a friend of… a friend." He paused to chew a mouthful of cockles. "I've known her my whole life, and she's only two years older'n me."

"Ah."

"Anne's a nice girl, James," Adé interjected. "You'll like her, if you take the time to get to know her." Kenway nodded enthusiastically.

We spent the remainder of the lunch period talking about our classes so far, and our expectations for the rest of the year. Adé, despite my initial thought, was actually just seventeen, although his incredibly tall and bulky certainly threw me off. He seemed to me an amicable and intelligent individual, and I certainly looked forward to getting to know him. He was the co-captain of the wrestling team, and I found out also that Kenway was the captain of the rugby team. _He's the type that would be._

When we were released to go to E period, Kenway, Adé, Vane, Hornigold and myself all joined together and walked in a group to Nautical History. Vane seemed friendly enough to me, either forgetting or blatantly disregarding the events of this morning in favor of what was apparently his usual jocular, if rather aggressive, behavior. _Fine by me. _When the mass of aggression and vulgarity that was the five of us entered the Nautical History room, we were assailed by a man in his late thirties with a short dark beard who was attempting to dress as a buccaneer. This was our teacher, Thatch.

"Now we have enough of you to make the teams even!" he exclaimed joyously.

Kenway and I exchanged a look while Hornigold asked incredulously, "_What _teams?"

"Well," Thatch explained, "this year we're focusing on Caribbean history. So we're having pirates—" he gestured to Kenway, Adé, and me "—and sailors in the Royal Navy—" he indicated Hornigold and Vane "—as the two teams in the class. Throughout the year, we'll be having several 'battles' in the form of games the entire class plays. At the end of the year, the class that has the most victories receives twenty extra credit points towards the final grade of each student."

There was a chorus of "ooh"s as we slipped into the roles assigned to us in the name of, for Kenway, Adé and I, loot.

"Pirates sit on the east side, sailors on the west," Thatch requested. Once we were all seated and he had taken attendance, our teacher walked to the front of his room.

"Hello all! I'm Professor Thatch. Welcome to Nautical History! You've all been informed of the rules of the game by now, so let's get right to the first order of assigning captains." A snicker ran through the room as everyone simultaneously understood the double meaning of the word. "Who'd like to be nominated?" Kenway and I both raised our hands, as did Hornigold and two other boys on the sailor's side. "Let's go with the pirates first. Come up, you two." We did. "Let's hear your names, gentlemen."

"I'm Edward Kenway…"

"… and I'm James Kidd."

"Well then," Thatch chuckled, obviously realizing what I would be if I was elected, "who should your captain be?"

In the end, it was a complete tie between Captain Kenway and Captain Kidd, so it was decided that we could be co-captains. While Kenway had the charisma necessary, I'd be Captain Kidd, and no one could resist that temptation.

Hornigold won his election easily, and the rest of the class was a rundown on what the class would be learning. Thatch mentioned that, the week before Christmas holiday, we would take the class to watch and analyze popular piratical films, using what we had learned in the class so far.

We left that class feeling invigorated and optimistic; it was already everyone's favorite class. "That'll be fucking _amazing_," Kenway sighed as we walked towards the stables for my next class.

"Aye," I responded, nodding enthusiastically. "Thatch is either a madman or a genius, it seems, but either way, it'll be a fun year with him."

"It takes a little of each to be a madman or a genius," Kenway said sagely before turning away to go to his class.

The stables were more luxurious than my dorm. I walked down the barn aisle in awe, not knowing what to look at. I eventually found my way to a conglomeration of students at the other end, and waited until the organizer of the equestrian club, Mr. Ericson, rounded a corner and strode towards us with such intensity that I was positive that he was going to slaughter one of us, at least. He was a short stocky man in his late forties, clean shaven with close-cropped grey hair, and a strong jawline. Instead of killing us, though, he began stopping in front of each of us, giving us each a once-over, and then barking a name in his southern American accent.

I was terrified when he came to me and gave me a twice-over. He paused, chewing his lower lip thoughtfully.

"Samuel."

He continued on his way, and I was left to figure out what that meant. Looking around, I noticed that the other students were meandering about the stables, and I realized that it was a horse's name. I began walking in no particular direction, and soon found myself standing in front of a stall labeled "SAMUEL" in large dark letters.

The animal inside was a tall, lean thoroughbred gelding. His body was a warm amber-brown, and his mane, tail, and legs were black. The white stripe on his head was facing me as he walked over to me and turned his head slightly to better look at me with the large brown orb of his eye. I felt a shiver running up my spine as our eyes locked.

The moment was interrupted, perhaps luckily, by Mr. Ericson giving us a demonstration on how to properly take care of our horses. We were to groom them every day, and were responsible for their exercise outside of club practice. Giving hay, oats, and water were also our responsibilities. He barked another indistinguishable order, which was apparently to be taken as "Get to work!"

In the sixty minutes I spent with that horse, Samuel tried to bite me no less than six times, and succeeded twice. He kicked at me once, but missed, while I cleaned his stall, and nearly knocked me off my feet when I walked into his stall with hay. _Fuck-head._

My last class of the day was Arabic with Mualim. Sweaty, smelling like manure, and disgruntled from having been abused by a horse, I made my way to the class that was closest to Jackdaw Hall. I arrived twenty-five seconds late, and was reprimanded harshly by the ancient teacher as I took my seat. He said something about tardiness equaling laziness. I didn't really care enough to pay too much attention.

The language seemed conceptually simple enough, and apparently we would be spending a quarter only translate traditional Islamic poetry to further our skills in the language. _I'll hate this teacher if he keeps shoving his dick down my throat at the slightest misstep. _He already made a bad first impression. _Keep going, old man. _

And then it was over, and I found myself hurrying back to Jackdaw Hall, back to my room for a nap, back to Kenway's shit-eating grin—

_I have to shower._

_ Everyone else is gonna be showering._

_ I'm a girl._


	5. Chapter 5

_Alright, Mary. _I had stopped in the middle of the doorway into Jackdaw Hall. Ignoring the coldness spreading through my body, I forced myself to keep walking. _There's no way in hell you're waiting until three in the morning to shower when I stink like this. _I began to panic. _If I walk out of there wearing a towel like a girl does, I'm totally fucked. _

Taking a deep breath, I decided that I'd figure it out while I showered. I quickened my pace back to my dorm, hoping to make it into the bathroom before too many other boys decided to follow suit. I paused outside the door when I heard muffled voices from inside. My interest piqued, I pressed my ears up against the thin wooden door in an attempt to hear what was being said.

"It's been a year, Edward." That was Adé.

"Fucking hell, Adé, I bloody well know." Edward sounded strained.

"Then why do you keep pining after her?"

Edward was silent for a moment. Then, through what sounded like gritted teeth, "Because I love her. And she promised that she'd always be there for me."

"Promises made in passion, Edward." Adé sighed. "You're my brother, and I love you. You had 15 good years with her. That's more than most could wish for. _Please._"

"God _damn_ it, Adé, you know I don't want to hear it!" Edward's shout was feral and raw and dripping with barely contained emotions. The room was silent for a moment, and then Adé's bass voice muttered something I couldn't understand. I walked several steps away from the door. He swung it open angrily and seemed to not notice me as he walked past me.

I entered the dorm quietly. Kenway, in a grey T-shirt bearing the insignia of St. Gerard's 2012 Rugby Team and yesterday's jeans, lay above the sheets on his bed with his arms folded over his face. I gave him a concerned look, opened my mouth to say something, then thought better of it. My clothes from yesterday lay in a pile on my desk, so I deposited my bag on my bed, and rummaged a clean compression shirt and underwear from the dresser. I hurriedly peeled off my sweaty blazer and exchanged it for a black hoodie, grabbed my jeans and trainers, and left Kenway to his thoughts in favor of a much-needed warm shower.

_ So there's a girl._ I turned on the water. I was alone in the bathroom, and had had the fortune of purchasing the last robe for sale in the hall's store. The shower stall was spacious and clean, and there was a bench just outside the water's reach where I could leave my clothes, robe, and towel, so I could still be dressed away from prying eyes.

_ There's a girl, but they had a falling out?_ The warm water was a relief. I let it run over me for a few minutes before I decided to shampoo the short black mess that grew on my head. On a normal girl, it would have been considered a pixie cut.

_ But he still loves her_. Axe's honey-colored syrup came easily from its bottle. I'd always loved washing my lean body, and it was almost exclusively because of Axe's musky fragrance.

_Why do I even care?_ Facial wash. My bone structure had a certain refined quality that only women could have; however, I was lucky to have some features, such as my jaw and brow, be just strong enough to pass me as a feminine man.

Or a masculine woman.

_I'm damned no matter what._ Male or female. Having—I forced myself to admit it—_feelings_ for Edward fucking Kenway or not.

My compression shirt went on easier than the sports bras did, and I made a mental note to pick up more of them the next time I found the time. Underwear, socks, jeans, trainers, hoodie. I gathered my dirty clothes and robe in one arm, and threw my towel in the dirty hamper on the way out of the bathroom.

Kenway wasn't in the dorm when I got back to drop off my laundry. Which was just as well, because there were things that I wanted to sort out before I saw him again, and I knew exactly who to go for about that.

I checked my watch. 16:47. Dinner started at 18:20. _That's plenty of time._

The dining hall was empty save for the cooks when I got there. I quickly made my way to the order window. "Anne!" I hissed.

The redhead peaked around a corner. "Gimme a mo'", she whispered back. The fiery locks disappeared.  
Moments later, she was hurrying to the window. "I was just thinking about ya, lass," she began. "Care to tell why yer masquerading as a boy?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," I replied coolly.

Anne forced a sharp laugh. "Cut the shit. You can fool the boys, but I'm not blind. You're androgynous at best, lass."

"What if I was transgendered?" I implored, groping in the dark for something to cover me.

"That'd be all good and well. Except you're not. "

"Fuck you."

"No, thanks; my eyes're on Jack."

"Cougar."

"Dyke."

We shared a giggle at that.

"Why're you here, though?" she asked, leaning forward so she was propped up on her elbows.

"What's Kenway's story?"

She tittered.

I could feel the blood going to my cheeks. "What?"

"He's a good one, isn't he?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh, piss off, lass. I saw how you were gazin' at him, stars all in your eyes."

"Fuck you," I snarled, embarrassed.

"We've been over this, darlin'." We laughed again. "There's not much to tell. I've—"

"Who's the girl?"

"Oh, you are _such_ a woman. How ever did you make it as a man?"

"Anne, come on, now."

Anne sighed. "Fine. Caroline Scott. My step sister, and Edward's girl-next-door. He's known her since they were old enough to say hello. They decided when they were two that she was his and he was hers, and they were nigh on inseparable ever since. She was the reason he didn't move to London with his parents." She shrugged. "There isn't anything else to say."

I frowned. "There is, obviously, or else I wouldn't be inquirin' about it."

Anne pursed her lips. "Hmmm. I don't know if I want to share the rest of it." She straightened up. "Bit of a touchy subject, really."

"Anne," I pleaded.

"What's your real name?" she asked abruptly.

"Uhm, Mary Read, to my mum." That threw me off balance.

"Oh." Anne hopped up to sit on the counter. "Well, I guess I have to tell ya." She leaned forward as though she was about to divulge some particularly juicy information. When she spoke again, it was in a whisper. "Over the summer one year, when he was fifteen, Edward became a bit of a wild child. Hangin' with the wrong sorts and whatnot. He got into some pretty bad stuff. Hard drugs and the like."

"Oh." I felt a sudden wave of sympathy.

"He was totally outta control, and not even Caroline could keep him in check. She realized that he wasn't the person she had fallen in love with anymore, and broke it off with him. It destroyed him." I nodded understandingly. "He got his shit together real fast after that; it's rather admirable. He came to me and asked if I would talk with her. Now, I love Edward dearly, but I also know Caroline. I obliged him, but I already knew what she'd say." She leaned back and gave me a remorseful look. "She told me that her decision was final, and there wasn't anythin' he nor I could do to change her mind. I relayed that like a good big sister, and he asked if he could see her.

"So, Caroline comes a-knockin' on his door one fine mornin'. She tells him that she's never goin' to so much as be his friend again, and that he had broken all his promises to her, and why should she keep hers? and that he was a terrible fuckin' human bein'-can you even imagine?-and that he'd better shape up if he doesn't want to lose the rest of his friends, too. She left without even sayin' goodbye, and I suppose Edward thinks that it's not over because of that." She shook her head. "Heartsick fool." She looked back up and closely examined me before hopping off the counter.

"Is that all?"

"Aye, lass. That's all. Now, though, ya've gotten me to thinkin'." She put her hand on her hip before studying me thoughtfully again.

"About what?" _Please don't say it._

Anne was silent for a moment. "Ye'd be very good for him, Mary Read," she said finally. "_Very_ good." Another introspective pause, then "When'll ya tell him?"

"I wasn't plannin' on it." I frowned. "You're the first one who knows here, as far as I know." There was Jack Rackham, but I was living on the chance that he had just been having some kind of drug-induced epiphany.

Anne tut-tutted. "We can't have that, now." She turned to walk back deeper into the kitchen. "Off with ya, James. I've got work to do, and yer handsome mug is too distracting."

I turned on my heel, and spent the walk back to my dorm mulling the tale over. I was especially intrigued by her last few statements. Kneading my temples, I resolved to not think about it too much. _Let it happen, I guess._

Edward had music playing again when I walked inside. _That means he's feeling better, right…? _I paused in the entryway after closing the door to listen to the lyrics.

"_Well, you see her when you fall asleep,_

_But never to touch and never to keep,_

'_Cause you loved her too much, _

_And you dived too deep."_

_Oh. _I inhaled slowly and walked down the short hallway and peeked around the corner. Edward didn't appear to have moved from where he was earlier in the day, but the music said otherwise. I sat down on the foot of his bed. "Y'alright?"

"_Only know you love her when you let her go."_

Edward gave a shuddering sigh and moved his arms to behind his head. "I wasn't, but I think I will be." He sat up slightly and gave me a small smile. "Yes, I definitely will be."

He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood in front of me. "It's almost time for dinner," he said as he stretched his arms over his head, his t-shirt lifting up and exposing a few inches of bare skin. _He's got a fucking happy trail. Fuck. No. _"The boys and I were gonna meet up to eat together; care to join us?"

"Not like I have anywhere better to be."

Dinner proved to be less of a meal and more of a bonding experience. Edward (when had I started thinking of him as Edward?) sat to my left, and Vane, who proved to actually be rather fun person, if you could get pass his abrasive surface, sat to my right.

Adé gave Edward a look after Anne had come over and asked how everything was doing. She'd winked at me playfully, which got a few raised eyebrows from around the table. When Edward noticed Adé's face, he leaned over and muttered, "I'm fine. Honestly."

Hornigold, from across the table, proclaimed, "Come on, boys, no secrets among friends. James gets a wink from Rackham's girl—" Rackham tore himself away from Vane and attempted to focus "-and now the two of you have your little whispers? Come, now, what're you keeping?"

Edward laughed and looked to me. "Are you keeping a secret from me, Kidd?"

I crossed my arms and grinned ruefully. "Not very well."


	6. Chapter 6

The rest of the week blurred together. The only things that stood out were aquaculture and lunch with Edward, nautical history, and my time working at the barn with Samuel. Both of the boys began to grow on me, and seeing them became the most important parts of my day.

Since the events of Monday evening with Adé, Edward seemed much more serene, much less distracted. Him and I spent our nights in the dining hall with Vane and Anne, and, once curfew at 2000 sent us back to our rooms, swapping stories and generally getting to know each other.

Anne and the other kitchen women organized a back-to-school get together Saturday. In the morning, all the clubs and teams were scheduled to meet until eleven, and the party was to start at 1800, giving everyone ample time to be ready. As a result, I went through my barn chores in a daze that morning, coming out of it only when I took Samuel out to exercise him on the end of the lunge line. _Five minutes walking each direction. Ten minutes trotting each direction. Five minutes cantering each direction. _

Samuel was getting bored of walking in a circle for twenty minutes, I could tell. After the end of his exercise, I gave him a carrot, and walked him back to his stall. "Tuesday we'll start riding," I murmured as he nuzzled my arm. "I promise." He snorted sharply, then turned to eat his hay. I grinned wryly and waved goodbye as I walked down the aisle.

My eyes were on my watch the second I was out of the barn. _Right on schedule. _The routine method of using my robe to shower had been working pretty well for the whole week; I doubted that my luck would extend through today.

Edward had apparently just gotten back from rugby practice, as he was still in the skeleton of his uniform, and was just grabbing the things he needed to shower when I walked in.

"How was practice?" I asked as I slid out of my boots.

He shrugged. "Could've been worse." He sat on his bed, waiting for me. "The boys are still awfully outta shape, y'know? We're still doing tons of conditioning."

"Same with us." I stood up and started rummaging through my dresser for clothes for later. "The horses weren't worked all summer. Samuel'll prolly kick me over if he has to do one more day of circles."

"I would, too," he chuckled. Settling on a flannel shirt and jeans, I straightened up, grabbed my trainers and robe, and gave him the _I'm ready to go_look. Edward stood up and left the room, with me close behind.

It wasn't until we were in the bathroom, which was already half-full of boys, that I realized what all of this was going to entail. Edward started prattling on in that endearing way as he began taking off his sweat-soaked clothes. I closed the curtain behind me and quickly undressed, before wrapping myself up in my robe and stepping outside as I waited for the water to heat up.

"Does Anne do this every year?" I asked from my seat outside my shower stall. He peeled off his shirt, and I picked out a chain across his left shoulder, a compass below the right half of his collar bone, and an hourglass extending over the entirety of his left slab of ribs. They looked distinctly piratical, and the effect was amplified exponentially when the modern clothing was removed, leaving him looking the part entirely.

"Aye." The socks came off. "Well, since she started working here, what was it, two years ago?" Shorts.

"I see…" What I really saw was the outline of a whale to the left of his navel, only partially visible above his boxers, which he had just begun to hook his thumb into. I stood up abruptly and stepped into the shower, praying that the water was hot enough.

It was.

_Fucking hell. That's not fair at all. _I leaned my head against the cool tiles of the wall, letting the hot water trickle down my back. I heard the water in the stall next to me turn on, and I knew that Edward was stepping inside. _Freak prefers his showers cold. _

Trying very hard _not _to think of my neighbor, I washed and dressed myself in a matter of minutes, and then waited outside the stalls for Edward to do the same.

By the time we were back at our room, it was only noon. We were about as dolled up as possible, so we took the hours we had to catch up on homework. I had pages of Arabic drills, as well as a lab report to write up for physics, and ten calculus questions to answer; Edward was burdened with a psychology paper.

We were silent for the majority of the day, the only sounds being pencils and keyboards, and Edward's music. About halfway through the day, a familiar song came on shuffle. I heard Edward inhale sharply.

"_Well, you only need the light when it's burning low._

_Only miss the sun when it starts to snow._

_Only know you love her when you let her go."_

I turned slightly to look at him in the opposite corner of the room. His back was to me, his fingers hovering over the keyboard but not moving. I spun my chair around so that I was fully facing him, then said quietly, "Edward?"

"Yeah?"

"I know about Caroline."

"Oh." He let that breath out.

"Are you sure you're alright?"

"Yeah." He turned around, and gave me a sad half-smile. "Who told you?"

"Anne," I said bashfully. He grinned.

"You two have been getting close lately, haven't you?" he teased. "Rackham's getting jealous."

I laughed. "He has nothing to be jealous of, believe me."

"Oh?" Mirth in his voice, light in his eyes.

"Write your paper, Kenway," I muttered, grinning mischievously.

Three hours later, we found ourselves in the dining hall, which Anne had decorated with autumnal decorations and orange and green fairy lights. She had set the round tables in a semicircle around the perimeter of the room with dishes consisting mainly of pumpkin on them. Edward requested that I eat the pumpkin pie before I left. The performance classes had pieces to do throughout the night on the platform in the centre of the room. Vane's theatre class had several sketches to perform, and Edward had a violin solo towards the end.

We were attached at the hip for the majority of the night, only being interrupted from each other by Adé and Rackham, and even then, only for three minutes at the most. I caught Anne giggling from the kitchen on more than one occasion, and I somehow knew it wasn't due to the current performance.

Five minutes before Edward's scheduled performance, he left me alone, and I was found myself wandering over to stand near Anne.

"'ey there, girlie," she said warmly as I drew close.

"This is lovely, Anne," I stated. "The pumpkin pie is absolutely delicious."

"Isn't it, thought?" She beamed. "It's an old recipe. Caroline's mum gave it to me. I'll have to share it with you some time."

"That'd be great." I leaned back against the wall and crossed my arms. "How're you and Rackham?"

Anne put on a sly grin. "Oh, you know."

"Apparently the boys think that we're…"

"You've got to be fuckin' jokin'." She rolled her eyes. "They really are oblivious, aren't they? Who told you that?"

"Edward." I grinned.

"_Why,_ though?" She made a face. "That could've gone unsaid."

"Erm… I told him that you told me about Caroline."

"Mary, you fuckin' twat." She put her face in her hands. "How'd he react?"

"He didn't seem upset."

The conversation was discontinued there, though, because Edward stepped onto the platform at that moment. He was introduced, brought his violin to his chin, and began playing the most remorseful song I'd ever heard. The violin seemed to sing, telling a story of unrequited love and yearning and all the other emotions you only heard about, and experienced second hand.

And it was over, just as soon as it began. I already missed the music, but it was replaced soon after by what I recognized as the hopeful tone of Clair de Lune. As he drew out the last few notes, I noticed Edward's azure eyes flicker over to me, making my stomach do somersaults. Anne must've noticed, too, because, after he took his bows and walked off the platform and out of sight, she whispered, "Somebody got quite a performance tonight, hmm?"

"What?" _Like I don't know._

"He played that for _you_, fuck-head." Anne smiled. "What did I say about you bein' good for him?" She elbowed me, chuckling, then added, "Someone needs to tell him soon; poor fella's havin' a sexuality crisis."

"Anne, I _swear,_" I giggled, pushing her with both arms; she was too busy laughing to stop me.

By the time Edward came back to us, Anne had tears streaming down her face, and I was failing at stifling my own laughter. He gave us a quizzical look, to which our only response was a simultaneous gasp of "I'll tell you later."


	7. Chapter 7

I went back to my room alone that night. Anne had requested that Edward stay and help her clean up, and I had a terrible feeling that I knew what they'd be discussing. I made myself stay calm and put on my pyjamas, then sat on the edge of my bed, debating whether I should go to sleep, or wait up for Edward to get back, no matter how long it took.

My decision was made for me when I heard the door open. _Oh. _I mentally prepared myself for Edward to tear me a new asshole.

"So," he said as soon as he rounded the corner into the main room, "what in God's name is going on with you?" He folded his arms across his chest.

"Me and Anne…?" I stood up. "There's nothing there; I told you."

Edward's face was impassive. "No," he said patiently. "I'm asking about you."

"There ain't nothing more to tell about me, Edward, you know that." I clenched my jaw. "Why? What did Anne say?"

He closed his eyes and sighed slowly, then uncrossed his arms and relaxed a bit. "Jim, listen. I…" He seemed to change what he wanted to say at that moment. "I want to believe you. But I _know _that Anne wouldn't have told you about Caroline unless she had something else on you." He paused for a moment, then added, "Something that I'd eventually find out." He sat down on his bed and cocked his head. "So your options are to tell me yourself, or let Anne tell me. She's already promised to tell me tomorrow."

_God damn it, Anne. _"If it means anything, she isn't supposed to know, either."

"_James."_

I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. "My name's not James."

Edward scoffed. "That's all?"

_Come on, now. _"I suppose so, yeah."

"So what's your real name?" He crossed his legs, genuinely curious.

"If I tell you," I said seriously, "you've got to promise to not tell _anyone. _Not even Adé. And also, nothing changes between us."

He rolled his eyes. "Fine." He raised an eyebrow. "I honestly don't see what the big bloody deal is, though. It can't be that embarrassing."

"My name's Mary, Edward."

"_What?" _His voice was sharp and incredulous. "How the fuck did you get in here?"

"Through months of forgery and cheating the system, that's how." _God fucking damn it._

"Oh." He grinned a bit as I turned to grab my toothbrush. "Well, now I've lost a man."

"Not a word of it to anyone." I went to use the sink on the other side of the wall. "Or I'll unman you as well."

Sunday morning started with the religious folk waking up early to go to Mass. Edward woke up long before me, and was just fixing to leave the room when I finally opened my eyes at 945. I propped myself up on my elbows and gave him a bleary smile. He was wearing only a white button down shirt and black slacks; for some reason, I would've expected more colour from him.

"G'morning," I mumbled, sitting all the way up and scrubbing at my face.

"Sleep well, Mary?" he asked innocently. It took me a moment to remember that he'd found out that little tidbit. I grumbled something incoherent and swung my legs over the edge of the bed.

"I swear, Kenway," I managed eventually, "one fucking word."

"It's safe with me," he said, and I believed him. "I'm meeting Hornigold and Adé for church; we'll be back before lunchtime." He started towards the door.

"You coulda told me you were religious," I remarked, standing up and stretching.

"And you coulda said you were a girl." _Ouch. _"Would've saved me a ton of grief."

"Piss off."

And the door closed.

I seriously didn't intend to change out of my pajamas today, so I mentally went over what I needed to do before tomorrow while I brushed my teeth.

_American lit… I need to read three Flannery O'Connor stories. _Other than feeding Samuel (the horses had Sunday off from working), I had else to do.

Taking care of my horse had become a therapeutic experience for me. He'd stopped biting and kicking at me on Thursday, and since then our relationship had been a peaceful companionship. Now, his large, dark eyes tracked me around his stall as I cleaned out the soiled straw, stopping occasionally to stroke his large head. Dump out the wheelbarrow, fill it up with hay, dump the hay in his stall. I groomed him thoroughly before checking his water trough. It was full enough to last the night.

By the time I was back in the room, it was only 1050. I decided that I'd shower and do laundry for the week, which ate up another hour and twenty minutes. When I arrived again with my load of clean laundry, Edward was sitting on his bed, back against the wall, engrossed in a book. He looked up when he noticed me, and I saw that he was back to his usual t-shirt and jeans.

"How was your solitude?" he teased, closing the book and crossing his legs.

"Boring," I remarked. "But I got to do laundry." His eyes tracked me around the room as I put away my things, just like Samuel's did.

"How very womanly." He grinned, leaning into the wall again.

"Fuck off." That drew a chuckle, and I turned around to face him. "What're you reading?" I inquired, walking towards him.

He picked up the book as I sat on the bed, facing him. "_The Art of War, _for Eastern Lit."

"Ah."

The music that he continuously played changed, and the new song was more raw than what he usually listened to. It sounded like stereotypical rock, but better.

"_I am still livin' with your ghost."_

"Ooooh," Edward breathed, looking up from the book's cover. "Hornigold showed me this a few years ago." He smiled. "It's called 'Santa Monica.'"

"_With my big black boots and an old suitcase._

_I do believe I'll find myself a new place."_

"You've seen Mulan, right?" he asked suddenly.

I was taken aback. "Yeah, of course."

"That was the first thing I thought of last night."

That got a laugh out of me. "Because of Mulan?"

"Shang, too."

_Oh._

"_We can live beside the ocean, and leave the fire behind."_

And then his azure eyes dropped from my own to my lips, and he leaned forward slightly, putting a hand on the bed to support his body, and—

He tasted like the ocean.

And then he was gone, just as soon as he had arrived. My eyes slid open to see him leaning back into his original position. Part of me wanted to follow him back, hungered to taste him more, and the other part of me, the more rational part, screamed that the moment was over, let it be.

"No homo, though," Edward said after a moment, snickering. I slapped him playfully before repositioning myself so I was leaning against the wall. And there we sat, for a good while, just taking each other in.

A knock on the door interrupted nothing in particular around 1250, and Edward's shout of "It's not locked" let Adé in the room. Noticing Edward and I on his bed, he raised an eyebrow, before speaking.

"I'm going to get a late lunch," he said. "Care to join me?"

Edward nodded enthusiastically. "Don't see why not," I responded.

We didn't really eat lunch; we really just grabbed some snack foods and bothered Anne, who must've guessed something had happened between the two of us, due to her particularly impish behavior. At one point, she caught my eye while Edward and Adé were engrossed in conversation, and pursed her lips at me. I grinned slightly and nodded, and her eyes widened. She drew a line from me to him, and I shook my head. Her hands flew up to cover her mouth. Laughing, I excused myself from the table and strode over to talk to her before she pissed herself.

"_He fuckin' kissed you first?" _She was practically vibrating. "_Don't fuck with me, Mary, I swear on me mum."_

"Calm _down, _Anne," I laughed. "It's not like we snogged or anything."

"How'd it happen?"

I went back to my room before Edward did, again, although this time was because I was sleepy. I wound up laying in my bed with the lights out for a good twenty minutes, unable to sleep, until Edward came inside.

He obviously wasn't feeling very energetic either, because there was only the sound of his clothes sliding off, and his sheets rustling as he got into his bed. Then the room went back to silence, the only noises being our breathing.

"Mary."

"Mhm?"

"Was that alright?" I knew what he meant.

"Aye." _That's not it, Mary. _"I liked it." _Fucking wonderful wording._

"Yeah." _Both of you are twelve-year-olds who can't speak like adults. _

"Can we…"

There was a _whoosh_, and the flapping of his sheets, and then he was on my bed, hovering over me. I could barely make out his face in the dark as he lowered it towards mine. He paused just centimeters away from my lips, his breath tantalizingly warm on my face. He started laughing.

"You made me think I was gay, you ass."

_Stop talking. _My left hand found itself knotted in his blonde locks, closing the distance between us. He still tasted like the ocean, and our movements were like a dance that we'd known forever. I'd gotten so used to his beard that it startled me when it first scratched my face, but it was a pleasant scratching. My right hand moved to the small of his back, wanting him closer. He bit my lower lip and pulled back.

"What?"

I let out a small groan. "Come back." I pushed a stray clump of hair out of his face, and pulled him back down. He settled into it this time, lowering his body onto mine, his lips moving more intensely.

His right hand moved the sheets down to my hips and found my torso. It stayed on my waist for a moment, as though he had to think about which way to move it, and eventually settled on up. His fingertips dragged lightly over my ribs, before plunging down again to pull my shirt up to just below my breasts. He trailed his fingertips from my sweatpants on my hips to where he'd left my shirt, and the shivers the act induced made me pull back and gasp lightly.

I pushed him back to where he was on his knees, and, through an awkward movement that made both of us giggle, got myself on mine as well. I left his lips, and kissed down his neck to his collar bone, pausing to lick at its hollow. It sent a satisfying shiver through his muscled body, and I kept moving, kissing down the middle of his abdomen, towards the enticing tent in his boxers. I was making good progress, getting right to that fucking happy trail before a hand grabbed my hair to stop me.

"Mary…" A whispered plea. I came back up to his jawline, focusing right above his Adam's apple. "Mary." More firmly this time. Another hand under my chin, bringing me back to his lips. "Mary." Both hands cupping my face. "We need to sleep."

"We have seven hours," I murmured, kissing his lips to punctuate the sentence.

"Mary." _I like that. _He slid off my bed. "Sleep." He ran his fingers through my hair before kissing me one more time, then went back to his bed.


	8. Chapter 8

It wasn't until I was getting out of the shower the next morning that I remembered my three stories I had to read. I peeked at the clock on the wall of the bathroom. _Seventy-five minutes for three stories. _I scrambled to put on my shoes, then hauled ass to the dining hall.

_God damn it. Leave it to Edward fucking Kenway to keep me from doing the last set of homework that I have. _The chair I took almost slid away from the table when I used it as a brake for my mad dash. I scrambled in my bag for the literature book, and flicked through the pages feverishly. I stopped on the first Flannery O'Connor story I found. "A Good Man is Hard to Find"_. _I grinned lightly before tearing into it.

By the time I had to leave for class, I had finished "A Good Man" and gotten halfway through "The Life You Save Could Be Your Own"_. _I gritted my teeth and packed up my things to go to Aquaculture. Edward met me in the entrance of Jackdaw Hall, and my stomach dropped.

We walked together in silence for a few minutes. When the Marine Studies building came into sight, Edward finally spoke.

"I'm sorry." He stared straight ahead.

"For what?"

"Last night." _How awkward he makes it sound._

"The only thing you should be apologizing for is not letting me finish my homework," I said, grinning at him.

He seemed to relax after that. "I'll take notes for you," he offered, "if you want to finish it."

We had gotten into the Aquaculture room by now, and I sighed gratefully as we slid into our seats. "That'd be lovely," I admitted, pulling out the lit book. "It's still okay," I added in an undertone, just as Stahl began taking attendance.

I was able to finish the last two stories just in time. Edward gave me the notes, then squeezed my hand before departing for his next class.

The day was easy after that. Physics had us reviewing the early history of physical science. Calculus was simple; only notes and more drills assigned. I was called up in American Literature to discuss the prominent themes in one of the stories I read. Before I knew it, I was hurrying to the Jackdaw's dining hall for lunch.

My first thought was that the girls must've cooked up something special, because I distinctly smelled pork and potatoes. I swept the room until my eyes landed on Edward, seated with Adé near the kitchen, and walked over to meet them.

"They made Irish food," Edward explained after I sat down. "Anne said it was black pudding and champ."

"Sounds exciting." Our backs were to the wall, and our seats were close enough that it was the easiest thing in the world for him to start running his fingers up and down my thigh, ever so lightly.

_How do you expect me to be able to hold a conversation with anyone when you're just making me want to take you behind the school and fuck you_? "Today's when we start with the conquistadors, right?" Adé asked, in reference to Nautical History.

Edward hummed an affirmative, his fingers tracing the line where my thigh met my body. My breath hitched in my throat, but my face remained otherwise stoic. "Starting with Columbus, of course."

Adé nodded. "Understandably."

"So they're serving the food, then?" I asked, doing a good job of keeping my voice level as those fucking fingers slid into my trousers, making shapes on the sensitive skin below my navel. _Piano-playing asshole._

"That's what I heard, yeah." Edward checked his watch on his left hand. "They should be coming out any minute now." He moved lower, lower. _Oh, he's bold_. My fingers wrapped around his wrist to pull him away, but not before he found the spot that made me involuntarily rut onto him. It wasn't much, but it was enough for him to notice and make the shit-eating grin that I caught out of the corner of my eye. I shot him an angry look as he brought his hand back out.

The door to the kitchen flung open, and four or five women walked out, all carrying trays laden with the six plates of blood pudding and champ. Anne delivered to Vane, Hornigold, and Rackham, who rewarded her with a slap on the ass, before moving over to us.

"I'm beginning to question the ethics of you and Rackham, Anne," Edward remarked as she gave him his plate. "Seeing as you work at his school and all."

"Oh, piss off, Edward." She winked at me as she placed my plate in front of me. "I can think of a few less ethical things you're involved in right now." That drew a laugh from all of us.

"Come now, Anne, that's behind him," Ade said defensively, chuckling.

"I should certainly hope so." And she danced away, still grinning.

Thatch was in especially good spirits when we got to class. His energetic reinterpretation of the European discovery of the Caribbean Islands included a song that he had allegedly written, and an interpretive dance about the desiccation of the natives that occurred over the following years. Five minutes before he released us, he pulled Edward, Hornigold, and me aside.

"Okay, boys," he began. "Our first game is coming up at the end of next week." Hornigold leaned closer in anticipation. "We'll finish the unit next Wednesday, and the game will be Thursday. The test's Friday." Edward nodded. "We're playing Two Truths as the review game. So. Here's where you three come in. I need you all to come up with sets of statements for the review. I'll do it, too, of course." He looked at each of us individually. "You can start today. Remember: we need two truths and a lie." The bell rang, and we were dismissed.

When I walked into the stables, Mr. Ericson was running around like a chicken with his head cut off. He beckoned me towards Samuel's stall when he caught sight of me.

"Your horse is dehydrated, Kidd," he growled once I arrived. Samuel was standing at the back of his stall, and he didn't look at me. His eyes looked dull and dry, and his mouth was covered in a thick paste that was his saliva. "Go in; pinch the skin on his neck." I did so, and noticed that it stayed standing straight up, instead of smoothing back out as it normally did. A pit opening up in my stomach, I looked over into his water trough. It appeared as though he hadn't touched it since yesterday.

"He needs oral electrolytes." I was shaking. "I have some in my office. It's in a big syringe."

"Yes, sir." I took off to find his office, where I rummaged around until I found a cardboard box with plastic syringes with orange labels. I grabbed one and sprinted back to Samuel's stall.

"Set it to five-seventy kilograms and squirt it in his mouth." Ericson's arms were folded across his chest. _It's all on me. _I walked back into the stall and did as Ericson said. Samuel tossed his head a bit, but the electrolytes went down. I drained the water trough before leaving the stall.

"Did you change his water yesterday?" His tone cut like a knife. He knew the answer before I said it.

"No, sir."

"You are to change his water every day, Kidd. Understand?" He pointed at the horse. "Horses will _die_ if they don't have fresh water. If it stays overnight, they won't touch it." He threw up his arms in exasperation. "Don't ask me why; I don't know. Horses are idiots." He sighed. "I'll look after him until your classes are over. After that, you—" he jabbed a finger towards my chest "—are here until six tomorrow morning. Get it?"

"Yes, sir."

"I hope you do." He turned on his heel and walked away to attend to his own business.

I cared for Samuel in a daze, taking special care while grooming him. I wasn't entirely sure that being dehydrated altered the way he physically felt, but I loved my new partner too much to take any chances.

Mualim chastised me for my handwriting when I turned in my Arabic homework, and I had to physically bite my tongue to keep from telling him that my horse might be dying, so shut the fuck up. His lesson was trying my patience; it was a miracle that I was able to sit through its entirety.

He released us, and I found myself sprinting to Jackdaw Hall. I flung open the door to my room and began taking off my clothes right in the entryway. I was down to my underthings by the time I reached my dresser and pulled out the first shirt I saw. Edward came in right as I pulled up my pants.

"What's wrong?" he asked, watching from the edge of the entryway as I fumbled with my trainers.

"Samuel's sick," I gasped. "I'm supposed to watch him all night." I got them both on through some miracle, grabbed my hoodie from my desk, and started towards the door.

"You can't even have dinner?" I shook my head. "I'll bring you some." I was out the door.

Samuel laid down around 1700, and stood back up at 1830. I kept the wheelbarrow and pitchfork outside his stall, and cleaned up immediately after he relieved himself. _Nothing better to do. _

At 1900, the stables were completely deserted. Edward arrived at 1920 with a flashlight, a Styrofoam carryout box full of what must've been Anne's leftovers, and a blanket. He sat down next to me after closing the stall door.

"You're an ass," I remarked, tucking in to the shepherd's pie that he had brought me. "You know that?"

"I've half a mind to take that pie back," he responded smartly. The starlight coming through the window at the back of the stall was hardly enough to see by. "But I'm also wondering what brought you to that conclusion."

Samuel laid down again with a sigh. "Lunch." I studied his face, and saw that he was blushing. "I will say that you were brave, though, to try that much in front of Adé." I finished the pie and closed the box. "Either that, or a fool."

"Luck seems to favor both." Samuel was asleep. I noticed that it was getting colder, and I pulled my hoodie over my head. Edward pressed close to me and threw the blanket over the both of us, and put his arm around me.

"I'm not helpless, Kenway," I muttered, hooking one arm behind him and resting the hand on his right shoulder, and putting the other on his abdomen. He started playing with my hair. A realization came to me, and I began laughing despite myself.

"What?" My head was resting on his chest, and the vibrato of his vocal chords sounded almost songlike when it was coupled with his heartbeat.

"I've known you for a week." _I'm so tired._

He chuckled. "Rackham and Anne fucked the first night they met." I sat up to look at him, and his calloused fingers traced from my ear to the tip of my jaw.

"No way." I blinked slowly.

"Mhm." His hand found its way to the back of my head, and he pulled me in to kiss me gently. "What time do I need to be gone?"

"530." My head was on his chest again. "I'll be back at 600."

He stroked my hair with his left hand, while his right laced its fingers with mine on his stomach. "I'll keep an eye on him. You need to sleep."

"You say that every time." I sighed and closed my eyes. "You fucking _suck."_


	9. Chapter 9

That week was the one that I finally settled into a rhythm. Samuel's dehydration proved to be a combination of the food he was getting and the water situation, so our training was allowed to continue uninhibited as long as I switched to an oat alternative. Thatch's over-the-top teaching style became almost normal, as did Mualim's abrasiveness.

After lunch that day, Edward stuck only to casual touches in public. His handling of me in private was never rough or feverish; every movement, every touch, every kiss was gentle and slow, as though he was savoring me while he had the time.

I really, really liked that.

We were allowed to leave campus from noon to 1700 starting our second weekend, and Edward, Ade, and I made a habit of going into town on Sundays. The first few weekends were spent sightseeing; after that, we began seeing films in the cinema.

And so my days progressed, until the crisp breezes and bright colours of autumn drowned out the final days of summer, and I found myself at the last Saturday of October, getting dressed with Edward for Anne's Halloween party. After our successful mid-term project about Grace O'Malley for Nautical History (we had taken a leaf from Thatch's book and done a dramatic comedy sketch about her), we had had pirate duds and nothing else to do with them. So, of course, we used them for Anne's party.

Which left me sitting on my bed, watching Edward get dressed as I tied the red bandana around my head. It was the brightest light I had seen him unclothed in for a while, and I took the opportunity to once again study the tattoos that had transfixed me since September.

"NEW WORLD ORDER" was stamped across his shoulders, slightly off-centered to make room for the rest of the chain, which ended just below his left shoulder blade. A surprisingly large hooded figure took up the rest of his back, while the faint outline of what looked like a stylized triangle with the lower portion detached marked the nape of his neck.

"Oy." Edward looked at me over his shoulder as he started to pull on his shirt. "What're the tattoos for?"

"What do they mean?" He faced me and fastened the buttons. "They're reminders, mainly. The hourglass is to not waste time. The compass is relatively new." He grabbed the long blue and white coat and swung that on. "Keep true to what you believe in. The chain has a lot of meanings, but mainly it's about liberty." Sitting on his bed, he started pulling on the tall boots. "New World Order is fairly straightforward. The hooded man and the symbol on my neck are an old thing relating to my family." He halted. "I think that's it, innit?"

"What about the whale?"

Edward looked surprised. "Isn't it obvious?" He stood up and offered me his hand. "I was born in Wales."

"You're a piece of shit, d'you know that?"

Laughing, he tugged on the red sash around my waist. "Whalers a few generations back."

"Ah." I examined his entire costume as we walked down the corridor towards the dining hall, and couldn't help from grinning wryly. "You look like you could've really been a pirate," I said quietly.

"Ahh yes," he laughed. "The dreaded Welsh pirate, Captain Edward Kenway, and the fearsome cross-dresser Mary Read. Or," he added quickly as my eyes narrowed, "Captain Kidd's long-lost son."

"Of course."

Anne, who called herself a "classy whore" with an orange bodysuit underneath her outfit, spent the evening with me, at an empty table outside the kitchen, where she pried into the Thing between Edward and me.

"This has been an informational blackout, love," she said excitedly. "I mean, I didn't know you before him, so there's nothing to go by there, but _he_ was never too good about keeping his personal life quiet for too long." She sipped from a mug of warm apple cider, her dark eyes wide over the brim. "Have you two _fucked _yet?"

I shrugged, my eyes on him and Hornigold, the naval officer, across the room, playing games.

"It's yes or no, missy."

I sighed. "Edward Kenway is being frustratingly… chaste." My arms crossed, I looked at Anne. "So, no."

Edward's apparent celibacy was becoming more infuriating with each day. It wasn't as though we didn't have the opportunity. On the contrary, we had all night, every night to do as we pleased. And yet, oftentimes, we didn't even share a bed.

Anne raised an eyebrow. "_That's _odd." She leaned back in her chair. "Him and Caroline did when they weren't even 14." She looked at me quizzically. "Have you said anything?"

"I—what? What could I even say?"

Anne shrugged, then leaned forward to rest her head on her arms. "Ionno," she said matter-of-factly. "That's why I'm asking you."

"You're an odd one." _It could go back to him being so gentle with me…?_

"Do you want to?" She looked at me intensely. "Could you fuck him anywhere he'd have it?" Her tone changed to a fanciful "Are you one of those girls that wants to wait till they're head-over-heels in love with Mister _Perfect, _in the perfect place at the perfect time?"

"I'd fuck him in the back seat of a cab if he'd let me," I said flatly. Anne grinned wickedly. "And _no,_" I added sharply, "I do _not _need your help with this one."

Rackham wandered over then, and Anne faithfully stood up to leave with him. "Don't say I never tried to help you," she said, blowing me a kiss as Rackham took her away.

Mid-November caught me jumping just under a meter with Samuel. We had both made outstanding progress from September. I made sure to ride him every day that I was allowed to, and when it came time for the club to start competing, Samuel and I were one of the strongest teams on the roster.

It was easy to leave the school for Liverpool Friday afternoon. I'd made sure to do all of my weekend's homework in advance, and when the trailer pulled alongside the barn, Samuel very nearly pulled me off of my feet as he danced around in excitement. Every line of his body was tense, full of energy and anticipation. _The show horse can finally show again. _I stroked his neck in a vain attempt to calm him down. When he finally was loaded onto the trailer after the other four horses, he almost yanked the leadrope out of my hand.

The drive to Liverpool from Swansea was roughly four hours, and I spent the vast majority of it sleeping. The van we were in was driven by Mr. Ericson and housed the five students who had been able to attend this show. One in particular, Peter Oaker, sat next to me, and conversed with me while I was awake.

"Is this your first year at St. Gerard's?" His accent was immediately recognizable as high-born London. I nodded. "And your Samuel's?"

"That's right."

"Nice. He's gorgeous." I swelled with pride. "Mine's Mo." She was the sleek chestnut mare with a temper and talent to rival Samuel's. "You're a jumper?" I nodded again. "We're doing eventing."

"Oooh," I breathed. "I wanted to do eventing, but Samuel doesn't have the stamina for it." Peter nodded understandingly, and we spent the rest of the trip talking horsey talk.

Two naps later, the van and trailer pulled into the showgrounds. Our stalls were a short walk away from the arenas, and simultaneously offered a fine view of the beginning of the cross country and hunt fields. The entire set-up affair was finished by 2100.

As we hadn't eaten yet, I began to wander the area, searching for a food vendor. The air was cold, and I was beginning to wonder if I should just wait till we got to the hotel for food. But my stomach was eating itself, I had money in my pocket, and while the van's air conditioning was shot, I knew that there would be something warm immediately available at the vendor's.

I wound up finding a small restaurant after meandering for ten minutes. They had the typical over-priced event food, and I wound up waiting in line behind two girls about my age.

"I haven't heard much about him since school started, actually," said the one with the strawberry-blonde mane. "Annie said he'd found someone, though." _You're joking. _She shrugged. "I'm happy for him."

"I feel sorry for whoever's saddled with him now, though." The brunette had the slightest Italian accent. "Did Anne say where they'd met?" _No fucking way._

"Nope. All she said was that he's a lot better, and he's found a girl." The blonde pulled her phone out of her jacket's pocket. "Oh, damn. They're leaving now, Claudia." She tugged on the sleeve of Claudia's coat. "C'mon."

"I'm hungry, though." The blonde hurried towards the door, and after a moment, Claudia tagged along. "Caroline!"

_Holy shit._

* * *

_I'm going to take this opportunity to say, if you're not reading this story on AO3, or at least checking up on it there, you're not getting the full experience. I have notes and whatnot there._

_Also. Starting today, updates are only Sundays and Wednesdays, in case you missed my blog post._

_Thank you to everyone who reads c:_


	10. Chapter 10

_Maybe it's a coincidence. _I knew it wasn't even as I thought it. Anne hadn't said anything about Caroline riding, but I had a feeling that there wasn't another Caroline in the United Kingdom with an Anne and an old flame who'd recently moved on. What an enormous cosmic joke, that we were now in the same showgrounds at the same time.

My appetite mysteriously disappeared after that, and I made my way back to our stalls. I gave Samuel's stall a final once-over, buckled on his light sheet, and waited outside for Mr. Ericson to take us to the hotel. Samuel must've sensed my tension, because he decided it would be clever to try to tear the hood off of my jacket. I had to grin at that.

Mr. Ericson had booked us three rooms at a cozy hotel ten kilometers away from the showgrounds. Ryan Kwik was my roommate. The lightly-built blond boy couldn't have been more than 168 centimeters tall, but his heavy grey draft mix, who was easily twice the size of Samuel, was a feather in his hands as they danced about the dressage arena. An intense and focused individual, he often found himself giving me tips on my flatwork back at St. Gerard's. On the eve of the season's first competition, we took solace in what little companionship we could find in each other.

The entire group went downstairs as soon as we were situated in our rooms for a raucous dinner party. We all decided that we had to order meat of some sort, because Mr. Ericson lectured us about how we'd need our energy for tomorrow, and protein would be the best for that. And since he was treating, we all picked the most expensive steaks on the menu, ate them much too fast, and ended up going back to our rooms within forty-five minutes, sick to our stomachs.

Ryan found a comfortable position bent over the toilet, because he was absolutely convinced that he was about to throw up. I found more satisfaction in being curled into the fetal position on my bed. With nothing better to do, I decided that it would be a good time to call Edward.

"I'm gonna make a phone call," I shouted, immediately regretting it as my stomach made a sharp noise in protest. I heard Ryan give an affirmative moan, and carefully reached over to the nightstand, where Anne's cell phone sat. She had let me borrow it for the weekend on the condition that I only use it to call her (through Rackham) or Edward. I tapped the button to unlock it and found Edward's number in her contacts.

His answer was a groggy "Hello?" after three rings.

"Good evening." I closed my eyes and couldn't help but grin.

"Mmm, hey." Realizing it was me, Edward sounded a bit more alert. I realized that I must've woken him up; it was about the time he usually went to sleep. "How's everything going?"

"The barn's fine, but everyone wolfed down dinner, and now we're all in our rooms, feeling like we're dyin'."

"Intriguing," Edward responded with a certain amount of sarcasm. "What did you all have?"

"Some over-priced steak."

Twenty minutes later, we were both barely awake. "I'm pretty sure my roommate just fell asleep over the toilet," I informed Edward, chuckling. The snores were magnified from the toilet and the bathroom. He laughed.

"What're you riding in tomorrow?" he said after a yawn.

"Two foot nine. Level Zero Jumpers, it's called." I yawned, too.

"Good luck, Captain."

"Thanks." I rolled onto my back. My stomach hurt significantly less.

"I miss you."

"Me, too." I sighed. "I'll see you Sunday night, though."

"Of course." He yawned again. "What time'll you be back?"

"I dunno."

"Alright." I could hear him shifting on the other end. "You should probably go to sleep now."

_He literally always does that. _"So should you."

"Yeah." What sounded like a sigh.

"'Night, then."

"Goodnight." A pause, then, "I love you."

I could hear my heartbeat thudding in my ears, and I was quiet for a long time. _Is he serious? _I trusted him entirely, but I sincerely didn't know how to react. The words had sounded odd in his mouth, as though he was trying to remember how to speak a language from his childhood. And for all I knew, he was.

But even as I had the smidgeon of doubt for the truth of what he had said, I knew that Edward meant it. He meant it on the nights when I'd cramped so terribly that I couldn't walk and all I could do was lie in bed and try not to cry, and he had given up homework or spending time with the other boys or even planning rugby drills to wrap himself around me to alleviate the pain, and he meant it the times that I'd found him absent-mindedly touching me just to feel that I was there, and every time he'd stayed awake all night to watch Samuel so I'd be able to sleep.

He had loved me for quite some time, and when I understood this, I remembered that I hadn't been breathing. I let out the air that was becoming stagnant in my lungs, and responded to the promise he was making. "I love you, too."

"Let me know how everything goes tomorrow." He hung up.

Ryan came walking out of the bathroom just then. "I didn't know you had a girl," he said, looking at me quizzically. "Since when?"

"Since forever." I threw back the blankets on the bed as best as I could while laying atop them, and crawled underneath them, still in today's clothes. "See you in the morning."

"Right."

Ryan's alarm went off at four in the fucking morning. He sprang out of bed and was in the bathroom getting himself ready before I even opened my eyes. I dragged myself to my suitcase and pulled out my clothes. After a moment of internal debate, I decided to bring an extra pair of breeches out with me, just in case.

We had a bagful of bagels waiting in the van, courtesy of Mr. Ericson. The other three boys still seemed to be more than half asleep for the duration of the ride to the barn, but as soon as we parked the van and exited to see the horses dancing in their stalls in anticipation, no one was still for more than a moment.

The time between when I closed Samuel's stall door and when we were standing at the gate, waiting to be let in to ride, was a total of five hours, but it passed almost terrifyingly fast. I had taken him out and lunged him at five, watching in shock as he galloped and bucked and kicked. Several times, he almost pulled the lunge line out of my hands, but after a good twenty minutes he finally settled into a long, relaxed trot.

When I started riding him to warm us up, he was almost perfect. Mr. Ericson sent us over a few low jumps before he dismissed us to go back to the barn. On Ryan's suggestion, I bought a sandwich while Samuel cooled down in his stall, and ate it while I memorized the course.

And then, on my way down to the arena atop Samuel, I found myself lying on my back on the frozen ground. Samuel's muzzle filled my vision, and he breathed a gust of hot air on my face. _You alright?_

_There's no way in hell that I blacked out. _Mr. Ericson had warned about that, but only during warmer months. I sat up, annoyed, and heard a dull thud followed by footsteps hurrying towards me.

"Oh my god, are you okay? I don't know what happened, you just fell off!"

_Fuck me sideways with the sharp end of a pitchfork. _The girl's hunter green polo shirt signified her as a rider from Casse Farms. Stylized horses galloped over the embroidered name of Caroline Scott.

I grimaced. "Yeah, I'm fine." She offered a gloved hand to help me to my feet. "I blacked out, I guess."

Caroline nodded wisely as I mounted Samuel again. "First show?"

"You've got it." _Goodbye._

"You're from St. Gerard's?" she asked as I began to walk away. _Fuck. Off._

"Yeah, why…?" Samuel tossed his head when I halted him again.

"D'you know Edward Kenway?"

I almost laughed. "He's my roommate."

"Is he still seeing that girl?" She looked so earnest.

Samuel sneezed underneath me. I actually did laugh, this time. At Caroline's quizzical look, I spoke. "Oh, they're _really_ serious about each other." I fought back a smirk. "Why?"

Caroline smiled faintly. "I'm glad to hear that he's happy." She looked back at the palomino being held by a mounted friend. "I should get back to my girl. Good luck!"

Which brought me, cold, pissed off, and the victim of a stomachache, to the gate, while I waited for Mr. Ericson to arrive from the dressage arena. I mentally went over my courses for what must've been the hundredth time, while Samuel paced and tongued his light bit nervously. Mr. Ericson showed up at 906, asked me if I know my course, and then threw me to the dogs.

Samuel picked up and easy lope as James Kidd and Buff Naked were announced. I brought him down to a high stepping trot until the buzzer sounded, making him take off to do his job, and me nearly shit myself.

The first jump was an orange and black single heading into the far corner. Samuel spotted it just as I did, his canter's stride becoming shorter and bouncier. I moved my body forward a stride too soon, and it was only the athletic snap of his hind end as it came over the pole that kept me from falling off.

We landed in a daze. It was all I could do to collect myself and push him around the tight corner towards the second and third jump. They were in a two-stride line, and Mr. Ericson's warnings about unfocused riders crashing in two-strides brought me back into myself. Closing my calves around Samuel's sides, I sat up and put my hands forward. It was over before I realized it.

The distance between the two-stride and the next jump, a single red wall, was long and took us around a wide corner. Step out, leg on, pick up my hand. Samuel swapped his leading leg just after we landed and took me to the wall. Three strides out, Samuel stumbled and threw me to my right stirrup. The weight change made him try to swap his leading leg again just as he was collecting himself to jump. We cleared the ominous wall, but knocked two Styrofoam bricks down. _Shit. _That was a penalty.

We barely made it to through the bent line to the next jump. Another rail down. I made myself balance upwards. _He knows what he's doing, come on. _I relaxed the second I thought that, and the rest of the course was _beautiful. _

With an ending time of thirty-five seconds, I was one of the fastest, but my penalties set me firmly in the fourth place slot. "You could've done better," Mr. Ericson said as I began walking back to the barn, "but it wasn't bad for your first show."

Samuel, of course, felt like he had just won the Olympics. His jaunty stride carried us back relatively quickly, and we were the only ones there when we arrived. I took care of him as speedily as I could, and then found my way to the restrooms in the back of the office. Those, too, were deserted, so I sidled unobtrusively into the women's side.

"Fuu_uuuck!"_

The red bloodstain on the inside of my breeches came as a complete surprise. I'd never been regular, and I hadn't thought to pack anything just in case. I was in a room full of boys, and I realized with a growing feeling of dread that I'd have to ask for help from the one person I didn't want to talk to.

And I began my mad rush to find Caroline Scott.


	11. Chapter 11

The stables were organized alphabetically; I knew this much. Casse Farms, and, by extension, Caroline Scott, would probably be in either Barn A or Barn B, which was at the other end of the showgrounds from where I was. I spent the walk contemplating how I would address my feminine issues to Caroline, and realized that, no matter how I did it, there would be some awkward questions. _Put me in a barrel full of flaming cocks. _

Irritating as it was, my body's sudden desire to tear itself apart explained my earlier blackout. That might help the explanation to Caroline, provided she was actually at the barn and not riding when I found where she was stabled. _Dresden… Darlee… Cheval… _Casse Farms rented fifteen stalls at the far end of Barn B, and all but four of them were empty. _Shit. _

The horse I had associated with Caroline, a small palomino mare with a braided mane, was in the third stall from the end, contentedly munching on hay. Caroline herself emerged from the end stall, running a hairbrush through her blonde tresses. She stopped when she recognized me, surprised.

"How'd you do?" she asked after a moment.

"Fine," I answered sharply. "I need something from you. It's an emergency."

Caroline's eyes widened as she continued walking. "… Yeah?"

"Promise not to tell anyone, but…" _Fuck. _I leaned close to her face and dropped my voice to a whisper."I need some lady things."

"I thought…" She gave me a puzzled look, but obediently trudged back to the end stall. I followed, and saw that it was a tack room. Caroline opened up an oak trunk and began rummaging around_. _"Are you like… actually a guy?"

_Good lord. _"No." I sighed. "It's a long story."

"How'd you get into an all-male school, then?" She turned around and handed me a tampon.

I rolled my eyes. "I still don't know." I began to walk back to the bathroom. "Thanks a lot, Caroline."

That set something off in her. "Wait." She grabbed my shoulder. "You're Edward's roommate." She looked more than a little irked when I faced her again. I nodded slowly. "Does he know you're a girl?" Caroline's eyes narrowed suspiciously.

_God _fucking _damn it. _"Yes." _That's it. That's fucking it. I'm dead. Tell Mr. Ericson I'm sorry. Shit. Fuck._

Caroline didn't react for a while. Her words, when she did speak, seemed so innocent, and yet, spoken towards me, were laced with malice and ill-will. "Have fun with him, and tell him I said hello."

It was through the biggest effort of willpower to not act out in response. I wanted to do so much, but I also wanted to be better than her, and eventually, the urge to remain clean beat out the urge to get back at her. "Thanks," I uttered, and strode off back to the bathroom.

I was able to walk to a convenience store after that and gracelessly purchased enough of the cursed things to last me until I made it back home. The cashier hadn't asked any questions, but her raised eyebrow at the boy with an armful of tampons was enough.

I spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in Samuel's stall while he placidly ate his hay. Only Peter Oaker and I would've been showing tomorrow, and upon Mr. Ericson's suggestion, we both pulled out from our classes.

By dinner we had packed everything into the trailer, save for the things we'd need in the morning. Ryan and Cadillac, his grey, placed first in all of their classes, and they graciously offered to check us all out while he took care of his business. This allowed us to hurry on our way to get some much-needed food. Mr. Ericson treated us to Italian food in the city, but not without a snide remark about eating too fast. Ryan, Peter, Miles, and Jake went off with Mr. Ericson to see some sites made historical by The Beatles after dropping me back at the hotel. After showering and bundling up in layers of socks and sweatshirts, I flopped on my bed and dialed Edward.

"You're a clingy thing, aren't you?" He picked up almost immediately.

"Oh, piss off, Kenway!" I laughed lightly. "How was practice?"

"Fine." A door closed in his end. "We have a game next Thursday."

I snorted. "At the end of November?"

"Yeah, I don't know either." I barely made out Anne's chirp of a voice. "Anne wants to know how you're doing."

"The show went great. I learned a lot." I paused. "I had a bit of an encounter with a certain Caroline Scott, though."

He swallowed on the other end; I could hear Anne's squeal of "What happened?"

"I'll tell you about it when I get there," I promised.

"Alright. When'll you be back?" Like an addict asking after his next hit.

"Noon."

"Wanna do something?" I could only assume Anne's squeaking was the beginning of her final stage. Soon, she would begin fusing heavy metals and collapse into herself, forming a black hole.

"Yeah," I responded, "I'd like that. Check what films are playing."

"Sure. Just you and me." Anne must've begun the implosion, judging by her noises. "I'm gonna eat dinner now. I love you." Anne's screams were so loud that I wondered if Edward even heard my response.

We were on the road by eight the next morning. I had slept fitfully that night and used the trip to catch up on sleep. The horses were unloaded and our belongings unpacked by 12:45. Edward was in our room when I arrived. After hugging me tightly, he sat back on his bed and watched me unpack.

"In an hour, there's a showing of-" he began.

"Caroline knows," I said abruptly.

Edward blinked three times. "How?"

I wrapped the bloodstained clothes in a plastic bag. "She knew you were seeing someone, and she knew I was your roommate." I straightened up and shrugged. "I had a girl emergency, came to her, and I guess she put it together." Edward pinched the bridge of his nose, and I continued slowly. "Do you still have feelings for her?" I asked haltingly.

"I..." He paused to exhale. "I don't love her," he said carefully, as though his words needed to be coaxed out. "Not anymore. I miss what we had." He shifted on his bed. "I'd love to say I'm completely over it, but she was with me for my whole life." He examined his hands before saying, almost timidly, "How can I forget that?"

"Oh." A normal girl would have burst into tears, or stormed from the room. But years of being male had tempered my emotions into what was usually an impassive mask. "So what is this, really, then?" I asked, gesturing around vaguely. "You and me."

"We're now," Edward said simply. "She's who I was and what I had and who made me fix myself. She's my past. You're who I am and what I have and you're getting the best of me. You're my present and my future." He locked eyes with me and said earnestly, "I know what love is, and I love you. Don't doubt that."

"Right," I said after a long moment. I stood up and grabbed the last clean clothes out of my bag. "I'll go shower now, I guess." Feeling slightly guilty, I kissed the top of his head on the way out.

_Well, shit. _I'd known bringing up Caroline would touch a nerve. I had been prepared for that. I wasn't prepared for the massive knot of nerves that I wound up beating with a mallet. _He'll be fine though, right?_

"So what's going on today?" I asked once I got back from my shower. Edward was seated at his desk, writing something on his laptop. I sat on his bed behind him and started tugging idly on his ponytail. It had gotten so long; it was almost time for him to get it cut.

He turned around to face me, cocking his head. "There's a movie about a drug agent at 16:00," he offered. He caught my hand before it fell too far, intertwining his calloused fingers with mine.

"Sounds intriguing," I said, shrugging. "What about that movie about the ad man; _Oldboy_, or something like that?"

"17:30." He leaned in and pressed his lips to mine. "Anne could sneak us out," he muttered before kissing me again. I nodded, eyes closed.

"As long as we're back here before 20:00, right?" My forehead was resting against his, and as my fingers delicately traced his bearded jaw, I remembered how odd it had been to not see him as the first thing when I woke up. Ihad missed Edward more than I had thought.

"Yeah." He unlaced our fingers to bring his hand up to my side, and lowered both of us onto his bed. "I'm sorry." He was doing that awful thing where he stopped kissing me to talk, and he _knew_ how much I hated it.

"Don't be." I drew my fingers down his neck, from his jaw to his shoulders, covered by his bird t-shirt. "I understand. She was a big part of you."

"That doesn't make it any better." Edward kissed me one more time before pressing his face against my neck and inhaling deeply. "You always smell like a guy," he laughed.

"How remarkable, that I smell like what I'm trying to pass as."

My hands took up their place at the back of his head as I felt his mouth begin moving at the base of my neck, causing gooseflesh to rise all over my skin. He came back to my lips, briefly, as he grabbed my sweatshirt and t-shirt and pulled them upwards. He pulled back only to get them over my head, then came back to my mouth in time to stifle the small gasp I made as I felt a hand on my breast.

Edward's shirt and jeans were on the other side of the room, about to be accompanied by my own jeans, when I remembered _why_ I had run into Caroline in the first place. "God fucking damn it." Edward looked up from my jeans, which he had gotten to my knees. "We can't."

"I think I have something in the dresser," he began, hooking his fingers into the waist of my boxers.

"No, I mean…" _Fucking hell. _"Girlie issues," I said, "remember?"

The face that Edward made at that was a mirror of what I was feeling. "Shit," he groaned.

"Yeah."

He stood up and began getting dressed again. "It's not fair to ask you to get me off without anything in return, so…" He made a vain attempt to cover the bulge in his pants with his shirt as he headed towards the door.

I grinned. "Have fun, Kenway."

We decided to take a late lunch after Edward got back. While he sat at a table with Vane and Rackham, I made my way over to the entryway into the kitchen.

"Anne!" I leaned over the counter as she came rounding the corner in the back.

Anne caught the lovebite before anyone else did. It was just below the collar of my sweatshirt, and the movement dropped it just low enough for the purple blob to be seen.

"Oh my fucking _god,_ love," she drawled when I scrambled to hide it. "Everyone gets them." She raised an eyebrow. "What were you two doing?"

"Not fucking." I frowned. "Do you have makeup I could use for it?"

"Of course." Anne turned on her heel and strode deep into the kitchen. Moments later, she was back with a tube of concealer. "Now," she said as she handed it to me, "why weren't you?"

I shut my eyes in embarrassment. "We were going to," I grumbled, "but it's that time of the month."

Anne tittered. "That never stopped Jack," she said playfully. I gagged. "Anyway," she continued, "do you think you'll bang soon?"

"God, Anne," I sighed. "I guess. Probably." She smiled impishly.

"Oh!" She gasped. "What're you doing for the winter break?"

I shrugged. I hadn't thought about it yet, even though it was fast approaching.

"Would you want to come back to my house? I live in Killay, and I'll probably be alone." She thought for a moment. "Unless Jack can get away from his family."

I was flattered. "If Edward doesn't ask me to go with him, of course I will." Anne smiled warmly. "Does he go to Adé's?"

Anne shook her head. "He goes to London to see his parents. You're worried about seeing Caroline?" I nodded. "What ever happened with her? All I heard was that you had a run-in."

I made a noncommittal sound. "She found out about Edward and me, and she was a bit rude. That's all."

"And how did Edward take it?" Before I was able to answer, Anne thankfully added, "Obviously well. What a silly question."

"Bless you, Bonny." I slid the concealer tube into my pocket.

In the end, we decided to not see _Oldboy. _The risk of being caught was too great, and with the end of the term coming up, Edward and I decided it would be easier for us just to wait until we were free.

We were ready to go to bed by 21:10. To my delight, Edward held his blankets up off his bed after he got in, inviting me to follow. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me into his chest as I climbed in, facing him. _I fucking love face to face sleeping. _I drowsily thumbed the hair behind his ear while I made myself comfortable by tucking my head against his bare chest.

"Hey." The rumbling of his voice could be felt against my forehead. I hummed contentedly in response as he hitched up my shirt and began dragging his fingers across the small of my back. "Do you want to come to London for holiday?"

"Yeah." I lifted my head and kissed his jugular before resting my head on his upper arm. "I'd like that."

"You'll be James, though." He picked me up by my waist just enough so he could reposition both of us.

"That's fine, love." I could feel a shiver run through him when I said that. My thumb tracing his ear slowed to a halt.

"Goodnight." He hooked a leg through mine, and pressed a kiss to the top of my head. "I love you."

"I love you, too."


	12. Chapter 12

_A/N: I'm really sorry_

* * *

"Ohh, looks like _someone_ had fun in Liverpool."

I had been engrossed in conversation with Edward over lunch when Vane's hoarse voice fell upon my ears. I looked at him, seated across the table, and realized that he was staring straight at the hickey that was partially visible where I had left my shirt unbuttoned.

"I guess you _could_ say that," I muttered, tugging at my collar to try to cover it. Anne's concealer had turned out to be far too pale, so I'd had to try to keep it covered as best I could by myself.

Vane waggled his eyebrows. Hornigold arrived then, sitting between Vane and Adé, and gave me a sly grin. "Getting busy, were you, James?"

"Oh my _god._" I could feel my face turning bright red. My eyes flickered back to Edward, laughing into his hands. "You make it sound like it's a big deal."

"It _is,_ though!" Vane growled. "Little baby Kidd is growing up." He leaned forward conspiratorially. "How hot was she?"

"Jesus fuck, Vane."

"Was she blonde?" Hornigold interjected. "You seem like you'd be into blondes."

Edward's ears were pink as he gasped for breath. "Yeah," I grumbled.

"Does Edward know something about Kidd's escapade?" Vane said, gesturing at the two of us grandly. "Would Mr. Kenway like to share that with the class?"

Edward frowned, wrinkling his nose, and shook his head. "Not really, no."

"No fair." Vane's lower lip jutted out in a comical pout.

"It must be because someone here knows her," Hornigold suggested.

I felt like my head was about to burst into flames. Edward covered his mouth, his eyes widening as he looked over at me, still laughing. I buried my face in my arms, embarrassed beyond belief. "You guys fucking suck."

I didn't see Edward after Nautical History until classes were over. When he came in, he had the look of someone who wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry.

"So, Adé." He sat on his bed.

"What about him?" I inquired from my desk.

"Thinks I'm gay."

I blinked. "_What?" _

"He implied it, really," he explained. "He mentioned that he'd seen you in your robe before you showered and you didn't have it, so it was odd that it would've shown up after that if it was from Liverpool."

"What the fuck?"

"Yeah. So he thinks we're gay." Edward's mouth was a tight line.

"What did you say?" I asked after a moment.

"I just sort of agreed that it was strange," Edward replied. "Then he mentioned that he hadn't seen me react like I did over lunch in years, and left me alone."

I frowned. "No more hickeys, jackass."

"Not on your neck, at least." He winked. "Anyway," he continued, "he just seemed pissed off that I didn't come out to him. Since, you know," he laughed, "I'm gay. But he won't tell anyone. He's good on that."

"Better to think we're gay than anything else," I said, shrugging.

"Right."

Dinner was incredibly awkward. Adé sat stiffly between Edward and Vane, who asked several times if I wanted a scarf. Rackham was unphased when Hornigold caught him up on the gossip, only whispering to me that Anne had told him. It didn't particularly bother me; Anne trusted him enough to expect him not to make a scene about it, and he generally left people to mind their own business, anyway.

Edward and I were mostly silent the entire meal, speaking only to answer questions or blandly comment on Hornigold's story of his latest girlfriend. Adé took note of that, and brought up a subject that was apparently taboo amongst the boys.

"Isn't the statistic that one in five men are gay?" he asked during a lull in conversation. The boys fell silent as they counted themselves. There were six of us.

"So?" Vane was on the defensive immediately. "What does it matter?"

"Jesus, Vane, he's just making conversation," Edward said tiredly. "That means that there's a _chance_ that at least one of us has the _possibility_ of being gay, right, Adé?"

"This is a dumb thing to talk about," Rackham sighed. "Why is this even a discussion? A man's business is his business; why do we have to make gossip about what goes on behind closed doors?"

"Oh, for fuck's sake." Hornigold shook his head. "Piss off. He's just trying to find something to talk about."

"What do you think, Jim?" Adé said, looking at me pointedly.

Edward bit his lip as I responded slowly. "To each their own, I suppose." I shrugged noncommittally. "Like Rackham said, it's none of my business. I'm not gay, so I don't really have anything to say about your statistics."

Adé began to speak again. "Fuck off, Adé," Rackham snarled. The rest of the dining hall had fallen silent. "This isn't something we have to talk about, because it just isn't important. Now, shut your gob before I shut it for you."

Adé stood up, his chair making a loud noise to punctuate his action. Rackham stood up to meet him, a good ten centimeters shorter, and they were on the verge of tearing each other apart before Edward stood up.

"Is this really necessary?" he questioned, spreading his arms wide between the two of them.

The kitchen door flew open with a bang. "_Oy_!" Anne was almost unrecognizable as she flew from the kitchen, angry and frightful and loud. "_All o' ya had better calm tha fuhk down 'afore I report you!" _Her accent had become so thick in her rage that it was difficult to understand. "_Torres won't do jack shit compared ta what I'll do!"_

Rackham shrank beneath her fiery gaze and sat down immediately. Adé locked eyes with Anne for an intense moment, then shot a look towards Edward before storming from the dining hall.

"I don't give half a fuck about what yer talkin' about, but I'll see meself _dead_ 'afore I watch somethin' break out in _my_ dominion, y'hear?" Anne bellowed. I was sure that I couldn't be the only one who was pissing themselves because of the complete reversal of her personality. "I'd better not be hearin' _anythin'_ like that ever again."

There was a defeated mutter of "yes, ma'am," and Anne eyed all of us for a moment before heading back into the kitchen. Edward stood up to follow Adé, in spite of my distressed sound in protest. _God fucking damn it._ I chased after them.

I could practically smell the testosterone in the corridor outside of the dining hall. Edward and Adé were standing about ten meters away from where I stood, speaking in rough tones.

"It is _really_ fucking immature that you're throwing such a fit about my supposed homosexuality," Edward growled, "and felt that it would be acceptable to bring it up to everyone else." He sighed, relaxing slightly. "You know that I would tell you something big like that. Why can't you just drop it?"

Adé rolled his eyes. "When you decide what it is you want to do with all of this, come find me." He walked down the opposite end of the hallway.

Edward turned to see me and sighed. "Sometimes I just want to…" He made a vague strangling motion.

I frowned. "Would him and Rackham really have gotten physical?"

Edward nodded. "It would've been close, too. Adé's a wrestler, but Rackham fights dirty and wouldn't let Adé take him down." He shrugged, starting off towards our room. "Either way, it didn't come to that."

"What about you and Adé?" I asked. "I feel like I cocked up you two."

"We've had worse fights," he said dismissively.

We skipped breakfast the next morning, going along with our better judgment. Stahl gave us a reminder that we would be leaving Friday morning for the combination field-and-camping trip to one of Swansea's more remote Atlantic beaches, where we would be met by a representative from Aquaculture Wales. Although it would be the beginning of December, and there was nothing on the beach itself that apparently related to farming marine life, she assured us that it was very necessary and very educational.

"I'll be supplying everything essential for survival," she chirped excitedly, "so all you boys need to do is bring yourselves and decide who you'll be sharing a tent with."

A relatively new friend of ours, the portly blonde boy by the name of Stede Bonnet, turned to look at Edward pleadingly from the table in front of us. "Sorry," Edward said, grinning. "Kidd's my roommate, and I've grown quite accustomed to having him in that position."

_Horny bastard._

Bonnet cursed quietly before turning around, and I gave Edward a gentle nudge with my elbow. "It's gonna be quite literally _freezing _while we're there," I whispered. "If you seriously expect me to strip in that weather…"

Edward winked and grinned ever so slightly. "I'm not, don't worry."

I raised an eyebrow and was about to launch myself into a smart retort when Stahl began talking again. "Like I said, we're leaving Thursday morning. The rep is going to bring us to Aquaculture Wales from the beach and show us around the facility."

"We could do all this in one day," Edward groaned quietly. "I'm all for camping, but it's _so _unnecessary."

"I've never been camping." I shrugged, which earned me a look from Edward.

"_What?_ How have you never been camping?"

"I never had a foster family that was into outdoorsy things," I responded quietly.

"Oh. Right." _Guess someone forgot about how I used to be._

"First time for everything, though, right?" I offered.

"Jim!" Stahl halted her rundown of the field trip to call us out on our conversation. "Ed! The two of you are going to give the whole class a seating chart." The venomous looks from our classmates were enough to silence us for the rest of the period.

"What are we doing for lunch?" I asked after class.

"Ionno," Edward said nonchalantly. "Not sitting with Adé, obviously." He held open the door out of the building for me. "Maybe we can just eat on the counter."

"Anne'd allow that?"

"Yup."

Sure enough, Anne let us eat our food while we stood by the ordering window and chatted with her. I quietly slipped her a £50 note while Edward wasn't looking; she had agreed to go Christmas shopping for my presents to Edward the next time she went into town, since I wasn't at liberty to make it there myself before break.

"So when's your train leaving?" Anne asked idly.

"I think we're going to catch the 6:58 on Sunday to Paddington." Edward looked to me. "Right?"

"Through Cardiff, yeah." I nodded. "And we'll be there in time for breakfast with your family?"

"That's right."

"Sounds exciting," Anne trilled. "Pack it before you wrap it, love," she added, patting Edward's cheek affectionately.

"Oh my god, Anne," I said, rolling my eyes. Edward was making an amused face.

"Hey," she said, her red brows meeting as she frowned quizzically. "Wasn't it you that said you'd fuck him in the back of a taxi if he'd let you?"

"_Anne." _I shut my eyes tight, very aware of Edward's laughter.

"Did you, now?" he asked, his grin apparent in his voice. "Why have I not been told about this?"

"She's been _very _frustrated with your lack of sex, darlin'," Anne said. I shot her a look.

"Ohh?" Edward's smirk was almost painfully wide. "It's not _entirely _my fault that we haven't; Mother Nature's Son over here is obviously forgetting that."

"In my defense, I said that a month ago." Which was obviously the wrong answer, because Edward rolled his eyes theatrically.

"You could've gotten laid on Halloween, love."

The thirty students in the Aquaculture class piled into a bus on Friday morning and drove the fifteen minutes to the beach we'd be camping at. Stahl gave us all tents, and Edward and I pitched ours at the edge of the site closest to the ocean. Almost immediately after we were finished, the representative from Swansea University's Centre for Sustainable Aquatic Research, a tall, lanky blonde man, arrived to walk with us to the facilities.

The building that we toured was huge and almost incomprehensible. The main room was filled wall to wall with seemingly empty pools, and a row of tubes above all of them. The representative began to explain the purpose of all of it.

"Dr. Mitra and Professor Flynn are working on phytoplankton," he stated as we walked down the immaculate rows. "They're developing adaptive plankton breeds that simulate interactions between phytoplankton and their zooplanktonic predators."

"Is that even a word?" Edward asked in an undertone. He was met with an elbow to the ribs.

"The rooms behind those doors are for the Ocean Acidification Research Programme." We stopped in front of a set of glass doors. "Swansea University is leading the project investigating the potential effects of ocean acidification on commercially important species."

"So it's not the kind of acid we can trip with?" Edward whispered.

"_Hush."_

"I wonder what would happen if I stuck my hand in the tank," he continued as the guide led us back past more rows of tanks up onto a catwalk-like structure. "Jim, I dare you to spit into it."

"I dare you to shut the fuck up."

"No, really." Edward grinned and leaned over the side of the catwalk. "Would it potentially ruin the entire facility's research?"

"It probably would," I responded, rolling my eyes. "Now, be quiet before we get yelled at."

"Right." He was silent for less than five minutes. "What if I threw you in?"

"_Edward."_

The tour took up the entire day. After we were settled into our campsite around 17:00, Stahl produced a barbeque and a few instruments from the back of her minivan, and within minutes burgers were on the grill for everyone's dinner. I couldn't help but wonder where the hell she had gotten half of the things she had brought with her.

"Ed, you're a musician, right?" Stahl asked over the barbeque. Edward nodded slowly. "Pick something up; give us a song!"

Edward awkwardly walked towards the group of instruments, his hands pausing over the violin, before choosing a plain-looking acoustic guitar. "I've only played bass for a while now, but I'll do my best." He screwed up his mouth and paused. "Also, I'm _not_ a singer," he warned, strolling back to his seat around the large fire.

He picked at the strings and re-tuned it a bit before putting on a serious face. "Anyway, this is 'Wonderwall.'" A burger came flying from an unknown source across the fire, and Edward, laughing, narrowly dodged it, before beginning to play a cheery tune.

"_There were bells on a hill, _

_But I never heard them ringing,_

_No, I never heard them at all,_

_Till there was you."_

Stahl wiggled excitedly as she recognized the song. Edward tilted his head towards me and comically batted his eyelashes as he sang the next stanza, which earned him a laugh from the boys. They took it jokingly, but the unspoken truth was that Edward _was _singing to me. It gave me a giddy feeling, and I was almost sorry when he finished the song to a polite applause from everyone. He stood up and bowed before returning the guitar to Stahl's instrument pile.

Two more boys played music. Stede Bonnet played a little bird-like melody on the flute, and a boy named Julien strummed a Spanish song on the autoharp. But, after we had finished with the music and storytelling, the temperature was dropping rapidly, and no amount of bundling up near the fire was going to change it. By 20:00, Edward and I made the decision to retire.

"Are we sharing a sleeping bag?" I looked at the two we had been supplied with. One _might_ be able to fit both of it. If we snuggled up close.

"It'll be a fuckton warmer like that," Edward answered. I nodded, and within five minutes we were in our pyjamas and pressed tight against each other inside the sleeping bag atop a nest of jackets and blankets.

"This was a terrible idea." The bag wasn't staying zipped properly because of its overstuffing, and neither of us would be able to move very much.

Edward was silent for a second. "Hang on." He unzipped our sleeping bag and wriggled out, leaving me to remember just how damn cold it was without another body in there. I climbed out, too. He remained kneeling down next to it as he unzipped it all the way, and did the same with the extra sleeping bag. "They zip together," he explained.

"Ah."

He paused as he finished zipping the two. "Are you done with your particularly feminine time?"

"Yeah. Since, like, two days ago." I stomped my feet. Even wearing socks in the well-insulated tent, it was _cold. _"Are you done with your particularly masculine bed making procedure?"

Edward grinned. "Yeah."

I paused before I crawled back inside the sleeping bag. "Thanks for the song," I murmured, putting a hand behind his head and pulling him in for a kiss.

"I love you," he said.

"I love you, too."

He kissed me again. I forgot how cold it was, focusing only on the points of warmth that he provided at every contact spot.

A minute and a half of increasingly feverish kissing later, I was on my back with him hovering over me, his hands sliding down my sides. His fingers hooked in my pyjama bottoms, and I forced myself to pull away from his mouth to reprimand him.

"I told you that I'm not getting buck-ass-naked in this weather," I sighed. "And I find it hard to believe that you want to, either."

"Trust me on this."

Edward slid my bottoms and boxers off my legs before kissing the skin below my bellybutton. He tactfully moved to my inner thigh, just above my knee, and maneuvered himself so that he had my legs propped on his shoulders. My lower body was just barely off the ground as a hand came up to dance just in between my legs. I sighed slightly at the feeling of it, and then it was gone.

"No fair," I muttered.

He must've heard me, because he started nibbling up the soft skin of my inner thigh. Just as I thought he had gotten his shit together, he started down the opposite leg. And then he did it again. And again. The fourth time he stopped just short of the center, and it was all I could do not to tell him to hurry the fuck up, you're killing me.

And then I felt his tongue flick onto something, and "Holy _shit,_ that feels good." He laughed, and the vibrations of the sound rocked everything down there as he moved upward the tiniest bit. "Jesus _fuck_." I didn't even try to silence myself as I rolled my hips towards him. That spot felt even better than the first, and Edward wasted no time in attacking it.

"Wow, yeah," I gasped. My voice shot up an octave. "That's… ah…" I had only the vaguest idea of what was going on down there, but I knew that it was making me claw the blankets and bite my lip and it felt really, really good.

Something in the back of my mind regretted not knowing more about my own anatomy, but the more carnal part that was in charge at the moment shut the thought down as Edward hit something just right. My eyes squeezed shut and I bit down hard on my lower lip as every muscle in my body tensed up.

Nothing was left after what was damn well the best thing I'd ever felt, except for a dull throbbing. "Shit…" When he felt my hands on his head, Edward slid my bottoms back on with a little help from me, then came up to love on my neck. "That was nice," I whispered as he tugged at my earlobe.

"I'll eat you up, I love you so," he said right into my ear. I giggled, sliding my hand down into his sweatpants. I awkwardly wrapped my hand around his bobby. _This is so weird._

"Jesus, your fingers are cold." Edward put his hand around mine, adjusting my grip as I began to move my hand clumsily up and down his length. _It would probably be easier if he wasn't wearing pants_. "Right, that's better."

I realized that I had absolutely no idea what to do. Obviously, I had to return the favor, but once I had him, I wasn't sure what to do aside from just… what I was doing now. Mentally cursing my naivety, I decided to wing it based on his reactions. Edward's little noises when I used my fingers said that he liked what I was doing, I guessed, and the way he was moving his hips into my hand _had _to be a good sign.

Getting Edward off wasn't too hard, I supposed, because maybe six minutes later, he was changing his clothes in the corner of the tent, and I was back inside the sleeping bags, apologizing profusely. "Its fine," he reassured me, pulling on a clean pair of sweatpants. "You'll learn as you go along."

"Christ, was it really that bad?" I scooted aside to let him climb in next to me. It was much more comfortable with the space doubled, but the accommodations were still snug enough that we had to press close together.

"No," Edward laughed. "It was good for a first time. I'm just saying you'll get better."

"I'm sorry," I said again as I tucked my head against his chest.

"Shut up."


	13. Chapter 13

Edward's blue eye was the first thing I saw when I woke up in the dim light of the early morning.

He was stroking my jawline, so very gently, and I realized that he had been closely studying my face. He gave me a small smile when he noticed that my eyes had opened, and hugged me just a bit closer, as though I was the warmest thing in the world. And, judging by the way we exhaled puffs of smokelike fog, I probably was.

We stayed like that, wrapped up in each other, foreheads touching and eyes half-closed, neither one of us moving until we heard the other boys begin to leave their tents. Edward sighed softly before letting beginning to get out of the sleeping bag.

"Holy shit. It's cold without you." I grabbed the sleeping bag and tried in vain to pull it closer around me as Edward shrugged on a heavy jacket that he had produced from his bag.

"The temperature's down ten degrees from yesterday morning," he stated after checking his phone.

"Damn."

Stahl poked her head into the tent as I was pulling on a coat. She looked over at Edward, lacing up his trainers. "Breakfast will be ready in a few minutes, boys." She wrinkled her nose at the smell of sex that was just barely noticeable in the air before ducking back out.

My nose was assailed with the scent of black pudding on the grill when I exited the tent. _Oh fuck yes_. Black pudding had been something I'd always eaten as a kid with my mother. Despite the somewhat questionable memories that I associated with the strong smell, black pudding was one of my favorite foods, and something that I ordered from Anne at every opportunity.

"Jesus," Edward muttered once he climbed from the mouth of the tent. "I hope blood pudding isn't the only thing she has."

"Why?" I asked incredulously.

"It sounds disgusting."

"You mean you've never had black pudding?"

"I've always heard it as blood pudding," he replied, wrinkling his nose. "That sounds _awful_."

"You have _got_ to try it, Edward, please." I tugged the sleeve of his jacket as I started towards the grill. "It's my absolute favorite thing."

"But blood, though." His heels were dug into the sand, literally.

"It tastes more gamey than anything, you pussy."

"You are what you eat."

_He doesn't want to be blood?_ It took me a moment to catch what he said. "Jesus fucking Christ." I turned away to get sausage for myself as I felt my face heat up in the biting cold.

Edward's rumbling stomach got the better of him, eventually, and he manned up enough to try black sausage. He found that he loved it, and eventually consumed more than I did. That included any unattended food, regardless of who it belonged to.

"Edward, where's my sausage?" I eyed him suspiciously after returning from our tent for an extra jacket to find that mine had gone missing.

"It's mine now," was his smooth response as he ate the last of the black pudding off of his plate. I sighed as I sat down again.

"At least you like it."

After breakfast, we quickly packed everything back into the cars, climbed in the bus, and drove the half-hour back to St. Gerard's. Edward and I were tired from staying up late and waking up with the sun, so we stumbled into our room and nodded off immediately on our own beds. I woke up around 11:45 to see Edward still asleep, so I used the opportunity to steal off to Anne.

Anne was in her usual place. Upon my arrival in the dining hall, she beckoned to me and hefted a grocery bag onto the counter.

"Here's your boyfriend's pirate books," she said once I got close enough. "I also got that necklace he wanted."

"Thank you so much." I peeked inside and saw that she had even wrapped them for me. "I owe you one."

"Not a problem, darlin'," she promised. "How was your little trip?"

"Fine."

"What'd you all do?"

"Learned and camped, Anne. It's pretty straightforward."

"What did you and Edward do, I mean?" The smirk on Anne's face said that she already had an idea.

I frowned. "What if I just didn't tell you?"

"Full-out or oral?"

"Christ, Anne. If I didn't know better, I would think you got off to this."

"He ate you out."

I blinked slowly before crossing my arms and giving her an irritated look. "Your powers of perception are beyond me."

"Like I said in September, love," Anne replied wisely, "I'm a woman."

"Whatever."

"You at least returned the favor, right?" _She looks so concerned._

"I tried to, I suppose," I muttered, embarrassed.

"Oh, fuck, Mary, if you didn't do anything back to him..." She didn't finish the thought. "Did you at least beat him off?"

I was mildly offended. "Of course."

Anne was thoughtful for a moment before continuing. "Does somebody need a sex ed lesson?"

"Anne, I-"

"-have never had a boyfriend or a cock, so you don't know how to handle one. And," she continued before I could respond, "I'd bet Jack's that you don't know shite about your own gee." She raised a red eyebrow. "Am I right?"

I grumbled an affirmative, and Anne disappeared below the counter for a few seconds, only to reappear with a pad of paper and a pen.

"So," she began, "you're more important than him, so that's where I'll start." She began scribbling shapes on the paper and naming parts and their location and purpose and how they felt, and punctuated most of her sentences with "But, most girls know that already."

"Anne," I said finally, in the middle of her especially detailed explanation of the clitoris, "I appreciate this, but how would I know about this if everyone thought I was a boy?"

That gave Anne pause. "Right." She made a bashful face. "Sorry."

"It's fine. Please, continue."

By the time Anne had finished her entire lesson on sex and genitalia, it was 13:50, and a drowsy-looking Edward pushed through the double doors and shuffled towards us.

"D'you 'ave anythin'?" he asked, still apparently half-asleep. "Food-wise, 'mean."

I slapped his shoulder. "You ate everyone's black pudding, and you're asking for more food?"

Edward grumbled something about being a growing boy before a tittering Anne wandered off to supply his hunger. He blearily reached towards the bag that was still on the counter. "Wuss'n there?"

I snatched it away quickly. "That doesn't concern you right now," I snarled.

He raised an eyebrow and looked to be on the verge of an interrogation until Anne came back with a small bag of crisps. "This is all you're getting, you fat fuck."

"Rude." Edward seemed to snap into attention when he opened the bag. "Did I miss anything?"

Anne gestured around the hall. "Nothing, aside from the holiday decorations." Indeed, a tree had been set up and decorated in the corner of the hall, and presents from the boys who had elected to stay on campus during break had already started cropping up below its lower branches.

"How festive," Edward said blandly around a mouthful of crisps. "You're taking us to the station in the morning, right?"

"Only if you make up with Adé." Anne frowned intensely.

"Guess we'll just walk, then." Edward shrugged and went to grab another handful of crisps, but Anne took the bag back into her possession before he reached it. "Hey."

"Make up with your brother."

"He's being a twit."

"I don't care."

"Neither do I."

"Oy, love," Anne began, turning to me, "do you feel like you learned something from our lesson?"

My eyes widened as I shook my head. "I don't want to be a part of this."

Edward looked immensely confused. "What lesson?" he asked sharply.

"I gave your girl the talk, darlin'. Along with telling her some tricks of the trade, of course." Anne winked at me. "I'm not sure, but I'm _thinking_ she shouldn't use any of them until you two make up."

"This is fucking ridiculous." _God damn it_. "Aren't I the cause of this, anyway?"

"Exactly. So I think it'd be a good payoff, don't you?"

"You're daft." I rolled my eyes, then paused, partially considering her point. _I could at least bluff him into it.  
_  
Edward took note of this and looked moderately worried. Obviously, Anne fucked like a goddess and her skills were not something to be passed up. "You wouldn't."

"Are you willing to call that bluff?" I folded my arms across my chest and splayed my legs.

Edward chewed his cheek for a moment before responding. "No." He turned on his heel, presumably to go find Adé.

Vane entered at that moment, accompanied by Rackham, who gave me a cordial nod before striking up a conversation with Anne. Vane focused on me.

"How was the trip?" he asked, grabbing the abandoned bag of crisps on the counter.

"Apparently it was eventful." I shrugged, hopping up to sit on the counter. "Educational. Kenway was dicking around the entire time."

Vane laughed in his gravelly voice. "He would. Did he threaten to piss in the tanks?"

I blinked in shock. "No, thankfully."

"He did in ninth year," Vane said, still grinning. "The teacher heard him and he was removed from the trip."

"Jesus Christ." I smiled at the floor, imagining the scenario. "Don't you live near his parents?"

"Yeah. You're going with him over break, right?" I nodded. "I'll see you next week, then. I'm going with Ben and Jack to Ben's until Tuesday when he leaves for the Caribbean."

"I hope he gets Thatch something; he'd absolutely cream himself."

Vane chuckled. "He's planning on getting Blackbeard paraphernalia." Edward Teach was Thatch's favorite pirate. "Which, I'm sure, he'll wave at us for the entire spring term."

"Probably."

"What got in to Adé the other day, d'ya know?" Vane asked abruptly. "That was very... Sudden, don't you agree?"

"Yeah. It was." I shrugged. "Kenway's going to make up with him, though."

"Ehh..." He frowned. "That was really an asshole thing for him to do in the first place," he sighed. "I'm probably the meanest person around here and I wouldn't even do that. It's not any of his business who we fuck, y'feel?"

"Totally." I nodded vigorously.

"And then to get so worked up about it, with no regards to anyone. Anne, Kenway... If they hadn't'a been there, I'd'a probably've done what Jack did, but..."

"Yeah." Then, in an undertone, "What would've Anne done?"

"Poisoned us, starved us out, put nasty shit like band aids and tampons in our food. Thing like that." I looked over at her, engrossed in conversation with Rackham. "It'd've been our word against hers to the school."

"Damn."

"She's stone-cold. I applaud Jack daily for being able to be with her."

"She certainly is a fuckton of woman to handle, isn't she?"

"That she is, Kidd."

4:30 in the morning is the time when you regret every single choice you've ever made. Edward tripped over all three of our suitcases on his way to flick on the light switch on Sunday morning. We hadn't finished packing our bags the night before, and had had to wake up extra early to complete the tedious task.

"Why'd we have to get the early train?" I mumbled, blindly grabbing a handful of boxers and compression shirts from my drawer.

"I don' fuckin' know," he groaned in response. Even with the lights on, he stumbled over his backpack and nearly landed face first on his bed. "I hate everythin'."

He had been out very, very late with Adé. I hadn't asked him about how it had gone, and he hadn't offered anything up to me. I hoped that it had went well, but I supposed that I'd have to wait and see.

We were in Anne's car at 5:30, with Edward and I sitting in the back seat and our bags in the front. Her car, a small Toyota, was inexplicably cold, and smelled like syrup. Edward dozed off, his head in my lap, as soon as we had pulled away from the school, and I soon followed.

"Wakey-wakey." Anne was prodding my shoulder, holding the car door open. "You have thirty minutes till your train leaves."

Dazed, I gave Edward a little shake. His eyelids fluttered open and he sat up, groggily muttering, "It was a nice nap."

"We can sleep on the train," I said, climbing out of the car. The air outside wasn't much colder than it had been in the car.

"Right." 


	14. Chapter 14

Anne hugged me tight on the platform as the train prepared to leave. She pressed a small box wrapped in red paper into my hand, saying, "Don't open it till Christmas."

"You're so sweet," I said, stuffing the box into my pocket and giving Anne another hug. Edward did the same, picking her up and spinning her around as he did so.

"Call me when you get there!" she called as we stepped up onto the train. "Love you both!"

We found our compartment just as the train lurched forward. Edward took the window, and I couldn't stop him from pulling the pane down to hang out and wave at Anne as the train pulled out of the station. He did so until she was out of sight, then sat back down, grinning, before grabbing my hand and lacing his fingers through mine.

"What's London like?" I asked idly.

"This time of year?" He ran his thumb over the back of my hand. "Cold. Grey. Rainy."

"So like everywhere else?"

Edward snorted. "They're pretty uptight, and… polite." He frowned and looked at me. "You might not like it, actually."

"Eh. We'll see."

Cardiff seemed to arrive too soon. Edward and I fell asleep soon after the train began moving, and he had woken up with a sore back from slouching in his seat, his legs propped up on the bench across from us. He straightened up and stretched with a groan, still seated.

We stayed quiet, looking out the window onto the busy platform. It was an absolute clusterfuck of bodies and luggage as people maneuvered their way onto our train. Edward stiffened next to me. I felt my heart skip a beat as the long blonde curls of Caroline Scott made their way towards our train.

"Are you okay?" I asked, squeezing his hand tightly.

He continued staring out the window at the bustling platform. "Yeah, I'm fine."

Caroline's fashionable self strode past the open door of our compartment, and entered the empty one across the aisle and two doors down. Her clothing style and the way she held herself made it obvious that she had spent time with Anne, being simultaneously trendy and practical. I heard the hiss of her compartment door closing, and Edward began talking again.

"I wonder who she's seeing," he remarked, happy to break the silence. "She lives near Swansea, but she goes to school in Cardiff."

"Maybe she's _seeing_ someone?" I suggested.

Edward shrugged, then fell silent as the train began to move again. "Did you ever date anyone else?"

"Not seriously."

"Ohh?" he prodded, arching an eyebrow.

"This girl named Sofia asked me out when I was thirteen," I began blandly. "Apparently I was quite the stud. We dated for two months, was it? Then this Italian asshole came to school and she dumped me for him." I frowned. "We snogged a couple times, but nothing like this."

I was on the receiving end of an intrigued look from Edward. "I thought you were straight?"

"It's a grey area," I said with a shrug.

I left to use the loo at one point, and when I opened the door to leave, Edward and Caroline were standing in the hallway. They looked so relaxed as they solemnly conversed, the lines of their bodies perfectly reflecting the part of long-time friends. Caroline said something, biting her lip, and Edward nodded slowly before she pulled him into a hug, then walked back into her compartment, closing the door.

Edward smiled at me as I drew near. "You missed quite a time."

"Do fill me in," I said, entirely level.

"I had my closure." We stepped back inside the compartment. "We both apologized for what we did to each other, and she said she was genuinely happy for us. She also said she was sorry for Liverpool," he added in an aside. "Anyway, we cleared everything up, said anything else that we had wanted to say, and that was it. 'Goodbye, Edward.' No more Miss Scott."

I was laying on my side on the bench across from him, my head resting on my folded arms. "That's good."

Edward nodded. "I think it is."

We arrived in London just after 10:00. Caroline had gotten off near Bristol, leaving Edward to his thoughts as I continued to doze. He called Anne just as our train came to its jarring halt and informed her that yes, we had arrived safely, yes, we won't forget anything on the train.

After grabbing our luggage, we made our way through the crowded Paddington Station. The arched roof that covered us from the rain couldn't protect us from the wind that blew in from the open sides as Edward dragged me through the hole he was plowing in the bodies. I found myself in the street before I could fully take in the area, while Edward called his family.

"My da's getting us," he stated after he hung up. "He thought we were gonna be down the road more, so he's driving up here now." He didn't seem pleased.

"Don't tell me you've got shit with your dad." I rolled my eyes.

"He's pissed off that I brought a friend, to be quite honest." He gave me a tired look. "But he is taking us out to breakfast at Mimo's."

"Good. I'm starving."

The car that pulled up to meet us was an extravagant hunter green Mercedes. Edward opened up the trunk and put our bags inside, then opened the door nearest us and climbed inside.

The interior was dark-coloured; between the deep brown paneling and leather seats of the same colour, it was almost obvious that it was a custom build. The driver tapped at the touchscreen console before turning in his seat to face me and Edward, who had set his jaw forward and was moodily looking out the window.

"Jim, this is my dad."

Edward's father looked nothing like him at first glance. With skin a few shades darker than Edward's, brown eyes, and black hair tinged with grey, he had the brow of a hawk, and a demeanor to match. He was incredibly sleek and smooth and clean and immaculate and so very London-esque, with a nose close to Edward's, but too long. He had the same strong jaw, and the way he confidently reached his hand towards me to shake was identical to Edward.

"Hello, James." His accent was straight from Manchester, which caused me to falter slightly. "I'm Bernard."

"Hello, sir." My voice naturally dropped an octave, causing Edward to shoot me an amused look as I shook the man's hand.

"Has Edward told you much about us?" he inquired as he pulled away from the curb.

"No, sir." I looked to Edward for help.

"Well," Bernard started with a sigh, "before we had Edward, his mother and I were the inheritors of a large and incredibly successful sheep farm in Bristol." _What the actual fuck._ The man seemed to be preening. "We retired when we found Linette to be pregnant, and moved back to her childhood home of Swansea." His calculating eyes were directed at me in the rearview. "I would assume he's told you the rest."

"I've only told bits and pieces, da," Edward responded through clenched teeth.

"For your best friend, you've certainly kept him in the dark." I noticed Edward bite back a sharp retort before his father continued. "I was diagnosed with lung cancer a few years back, and it wasn't looking too bright. Fortunately, we were able to find a doctor to fix me up." _Why do I need to know this?_ "So don't smoke in my house."

_Asshole_. I wasn't having good first impressions of Edward's father. "I don't smoke, sir," I said, trying to keep an offended tone from edging into my voice.

"You'd be the first of Edward's friends, then."

Edward seemed to be on the verge of saying something _extremely_ rude, until Edward's father pulled into a serendipitously empty parking space near the front of a café bearing the sign of Mimo's.

Breakfast consisted of awkward questions from Bernard, with Edward sitting stiffly across from me next to him. I didn't eat much of the sausage and eggs meal that had been delivered to me as Edward's father prattled on about meaningless things. He boxed up my meal when I didn't finish, giving me an irate look, then paid and took us on our way to the Kenway's house.

It was a large affair on the outskirts of the city, in a wealthy suburb where each estate home had long driveways and large green lawns which stood out in stark juxtaposition against the grey of the sky. We pulled into a driveway that didn't look terribly different from the rest, and I was immediately assaulted by a large Beagle upon exiting the car.

"Go lay down, Desmond." Edward shoo'd the dog off after getting our luggage from the trunk before looking at my apologetically. "Desmond's not very well behaved."

"It's fine," I responded, awkwardly trying to keep the dog away from me while I followed Bernard and Edward to the front door.

"Linette, dear, we're home," Bernard called once we were inside the house. Edward trudged up the staircase that was on the other side of the beautiful foyer, carelessly dragging a suitcase up the dark wooden steps. His father raised an eyebrow at the abuse the stairs were suffering, but then strolled of into a room on the left.

"My room's over here," Edward said at the landing, walking down towards the right end of the hallway. "You can be in the room across from me, officially." He opened the walnut wood door to his room, holding it open for me to follow. "I'm only here for a few weeks a year, so it's nothing much."

"Ooh."

Edward's bedroom was an obvious amalgamation of all of his interests, and _huge. _His bed was in the corner opposite the door we had just entered through, underneatha poster displaying the flags of famous pirates. _Nerd. _A hammock was suspended over an expensive-looking electronic piano, which had an acoustic bass leaning against its side. There was an oak desk below the window on the other wall of the room. The centerpiece of the room was a table made from the wheel of an old ship, which stood below a rope chandelier. Various other musical and nautical motifs and artifacts were scattered about the room on various shelves and desks and on the walls.

"Did you even clean up before you left?" I asked, amused, as Edward placed his bags on the wheel table and opened them up, intending to unpack.

"Not really, no." He abandoned his bags almost immediately after opening them and sat at the piano. "What should I play?"

"I don't know. You're the one in charge here." I climbed into the hammock and stared at the ceiling, my arms behind me head. Edward idly played the _Pirates of the Caribbean _theme. "Something from _Gatsby_?"

Edward obliged me with Young and Beautiful, and we spent the rest of the morning like that, with my sprouting songs or themes or emotions, and him happily obliging.

_I want to do this with him for the rest of my life._


	15. Chapter 15

_Merry Christmas._

_I hate FFN's formatting, so I'm really sorry if this looks dumpy. _

* * *

Benjamin was the only one in his family who didn't get seasick.

He was vaguely amused by the fact that every time the Hornigolds went on a cruise, Benjamin was the sole member of the family who was actually able to enjoy it.

Christmas morning in the Caribbean Sea was certainly nothing extraordinary; the sunlight danced on the almost translucent water in patterns identical to the way they did in the UK. The serving staff gave him the same plastic smiles and the food was just as mediocre as it was everywhere else in the world.

And yet he always loved coming back to the Caribbean. Something about the vibrant and bloody history of the area drew him to it, as though, in another world…

Benjamin walked away from the rail of the cruise ship with an irate sigh. He didn't like thinking about such complex scientific things as alternate universes. Charles and Jack would talk for hours about probabilities and how every decision we made caused an alternate timeline to spring up, and how, right at this very moment, there could be another you, with the same personality and appearance and traits, living a completely different life. Maybe even in a different time period. This intense discussion would always cause Edward and Benjamin to become increasingly bored, which would always lead them to talk about other things.

That, of course, led to talk of fate and philosophy. Do we feel drawn to certain people or things because we're meant to be with them? If someone continuously turns up in your life, are you destined for each other? Does destiny even exist, or is it all free will? Charles would cut off his heated exchange with Jack, then, to listen with rapt attention to Benjamin's observations.

A redheaded girl made eyes at Benjamin as he walked past her, pouting lightly when he ignored her. He was more focused on the tall brunette with a pixie cut at the other end of the deck, who bit her lip when her lidded green eyes locked with his. Her nose had just the slightest tinge of pink at the tip; that, coupled with the almost feral way with which she visually broke down every inch of him as he struck up a conversation with her, reminded Benjamin of Charles.

He thought about him a lot. He would never let on to anyone, not even Edward, that the one who plagued his thoughts was their male friend, but it was the honest truth. Benjamin supposed that everyone assumed he simply wasn't capable of falling in love, and that his flings with anything with a cunt were his vain attempts at it.

And as much as he hated to admit it, as he moved a bit closer to the brunette named Lisa, it wasn't true. He was young yet, and he knew nothing of that odd thing called love, but he most definitely liked Charles _a lot._ He had no idea how to go about anything with Charles; they were close friends, to be sure, but…

So Benjamin steeled himself and jumped headlong into another meaningless jaunt with a pretty girl.

* * *

Hot tears ran down Anne's face as she lay in her bed, curled into a tight fetal position.

She had had that nightmare again; the one where they were all pirates, much older than they were now, and Jack and Mary and Ben and Charles and even Caroline were dead.

It always started out so nicely. Aside from not knowing Caroline to begin with, her dream life with Jack and Mary making up a deadly seafaring trio alongside her was amazing. But she consistently woke up when Edward, wearing the haggard look of a man who had lost his last light in a too-dark world, had carried the emaciated body of her dearest friend out of the prison that they had ended in when Jack's men hadn't had the bollocks to fight off the Navy like Anne and Mary had.

Benjamin had ratted the lot of them out to the Crown, causing him to die at the hands of an anguished Edward. Charles ended up in the same prison as Mary, Anne, and Jack. Adé was alive, but the same omnipotent knowledge that told her that also let her understand that Caroline was long dead in Bristol. It just broke her heart when she woke up.

Charles had said, when Anne mentioned the dreams to him once, that it could be a glimpse into an alternate reality. The idea of that was absurd, but he backed it up with odd bits of science and personal experience. "You could be seeing what really is in another place," he had explained. That made Anne feel even worse.

It took Anne a good twenty minutes to calm herself down. The clock next to her bed read 10:00 when her eyes were clear enough to see. Edward and Mary's train should be arriving soon. She took a deep, shuddering sigh and got up to fix herself some coffee, her dark thoughts only interrupted when Edward's name came up on the caller ID of her cell.

"You lot made it alright?"

* * *

The stench of pot, booze, and sex made up Jack's perfume. It had been his ever-present companion for years now, since he was old enough to get his hands on any one of its components. He mused over the recent lack of the third ingredient while he lay in the attic of his house, listening to the increasingly loud noises coming from downstairs.

He wondered how long it would be before he could finally get on his way to Anne's. His parents didn't know, of course, but it wasn't like anyone would care. Nobody would be looking for him, and he'd snuck off to her house for much longer than winter break before.

Jack took a deep drag from the joint he held in the fingers of his left hand. His father's shouting was getting louder, and Jack knew from experience that no amount of intoxication would drown it out. He supposed that he was lucky that he had always been able to steal away whenever his parents went at it; because of that, he had never been the subject of his father's abuse more than verbally.

Nobody in the house expected much of him, and perhaps that was why he found such solace in narcotics, and Anne. When he was alone, he could submerge himself in the numbing haze of alcohol and marijuana. No shouting, no low expectations born of too many disappointments, no broken furniture. Only himself and his altered thoughts. And then Anne… wonderful Anne, the one who had saved him more than she knew, and continued to do so every day. He'd never be able to make her understand that. Anne brought out the absolute best in him, made him into someone to be proud of. She meant the world to him, and she did more for him than any drug could ever do.

The sun was setting when the house-rattling slam of a door marked the end of the current leg of the fight between Jack's parents. He pushed himself upright with a sigh and shoved his wallet into his pocket before making his way over to the window of the attic. He paused for a moment to pull on his coat that he had left there, before pushing it open and climbing out.

Sliding down the snow covered roof was an old routine for him now, and his legs carried him quickly to the train station. He could be at Anne's by 20:00, if there was a train leaving soon.

* * *

The week before Christmas was, as always, the longest week of the year for Charles. He had left Benjamin and Jack earlier that day, and was now on the exceedingly boring train ride to London.

Maybe 'exceedingly boring' wasn't quite the right phrase. Yes, Charles didn't have anything to do. That was true. But he did love the landscapes that flew past his window as he moved across the country. The natural beauty of the world, so often left unappreciated, was something dear to his heart.

Charles, too, was guilty of not appreciating nature. It was to be admitted that he found himself in the loud red fog that was anger more often than not when he was with other people, which was the majority of the time. However, when he found himself alone, Charles was easily able to slip into a mood of comfort and oneness with the world around him.

He sighed and shifted in his seat anxiously. There was still another hour before he arrived in Paddington, and he wondered idly what Edward would want to do once they found time to spend together. Rough and violent as their friendship was, Charles genuinely enjoyed spending time with Edward. He laughed to himself as he remembered their first meeting this year, in front of James. It had ended in a screaming match, as most of their meetings did, and he could only imagine what had been going through poor James's head at the time.

James, though. He was an odd one. He was clever and quick-witted, but more introverted than the rest of the boys were. To each their own, he supposed. He wondered what, exactly, was his relationship with Edward, because the sly looks they gave each other were anything but platonic.

He supposed he'd find out when he arrived in London.

* * *

Edward's mother called us down for dinner around 16:00 that first day. Linette Kenway hugged her son tightly when she saw him, and gave me a gentle embrace in greeting. I liked the slender blonde woman immediately. The gentle motherly aura surrounding her as she served us the homemade rarebit was something that I had missed since the death of my own mother.

"Is there anything else you'd like, Jim?" she asked me while the four of us ate in the gold-painted dining room. She had a Welsh accent, almost identical to Edward's.

"No, thank you," I responded after I had swallowed the rarebit. "This is delicious, Mrs. Kenway."

"Oh, thank you, sweetie." She smiled warmly at me before turning her eyes to her son. "Did you show Jim where everything is?"

"Yeah," Edward said almost incoherently through a mouthful of rarebit. _Jesus, your manners… _"I have him in the room across from me; that's fine, right?"

"Of course." Linette stood up from the table to take Bernard's empty plate into the kitchen.

"Tessa called this morning," Bernard stated after a moment of silence. "She was wondering when you'd be coming home."

"Did she now?" was Edward's bored return as he picked at his meal.

"I told her you'd be here tonight."

Edward paused and closed his eyes. "I see."

Linette reentered, then. "Are you boys done, too?" she asked, making a move for our plates. Edward and I nodded, then asked to be excused. "Yes, yes," Linette tweeted kindly, "Off with you."

I helped Edward unpack in his room before he took me across the hall to what would be my room.

"This is basically my main guest room," he explained as he opened the door into the light yellow room. "It's where Caroline or Adé or Hornigold would stay when they came here with me." I nodded as I walked towards the unmade bed.

"Sheets?"

"In the dresser."

I made the bed while Edward unpacked my clothes and put them into the dresser next to my bed. I finished my job before he finished his, and I suddenly turned round, grabbed his upper arm and, before he could react, had thrown him atop the sheets and was slinging a leg over his waist to straddle him.

"Hello to you, too," he said, surprise apparent in his voice as I started kissing his neck. I slid my hands underneath his shirt and up his abdomen, making him shiver. "Your hands are still cold as fuck." He put one hand behind my head, and had just lightly placed the other on my thigh when I bit down, hard, at the base of his neck.

"Jesus." Edward tugged my head back from his neck to try to get me to his mouth, but all it did was give me an easier route to get his shirt over his head. He lifted himself up in an attempt to meet my mouth, and was met with empty air when I moved my head down to his bare chest.

I suddenly found myself on my back with a hot-and-bothered Edward looming above me. He moved again to kiss my lips, and I tilted my head just enough that he met my cheek. I grinned evilly as he glared daggers. "I just want to kiss you, god damn it."

"You are," I said innocently as he missed again. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Fuck you," he grumbled into my neck, taking his fingers to the fly of my jeans.

I let him get my jeans down to my knees before pushing him off of me and standing up. "Well, Kenway, it's been fun," I stated, re-doing my pants. Edward was on his knees on the bed, shirtless and shocked and utterly betrayed. "I'm off to go shower."

"Towels are in the cupboard, numpty."

The last thing I saw before I left the room was Edward's defeated face.

Things went on in this manner for a few days after that. I realized that, in keeping Edward quite literally out of my pants, I was at complete liberty to decide what went on between us at any given time. I was immensely amused by this epiphany, and never failed to remind Edward of that.

Several times one or both of us were almost entirely naked before I 'changed my mind,' and Edward's groans of irritation brought me endless mirth. I knew that it was through only the biggest effort of willpower that he didn't forcefully stop me every time I did it, and I mentally thanked him for that.

By Christmas Eve, Vane had arrived in London, and had been at his family's house for quite a while now; however, familial commitments had barred him from seeing Edward and me since his arrival.

After dinner, Edward and I exchanged gifts in the privacy of his bedroom. To his pleasant surprise, he received the necklace with the guitar and skull charm that he'd eyed in Swansea, along with a couple piratical history books. My gifts…

"What the fuck is this?" The cover of the DVD read _She's the Man._

"Ooh." Edward leaned forward excitedly. "It's an American film about this girl who dresses as her brother to play football," he gushed, "and winds up hooking up with her roommate."

I choked back a laugh. "How the fuck did you even find this?"

"Anne loves her chick flicks." Edward handed me a small thin square. "There's this, too."

It was a CD. He had written only "from kenway" and the artist names on it, alongside a miniscule anchor in the corner of the plastic case.

"Can we listen to it?" Edward nodded, and I stood up to put it in the radio he had on his desk.

I lay down in his hammock as the first song began to play, and I immediately recognized it as "Santa Monica," the song that had played when he first kissed me all those months ago. Edward was smirking when I looked over at him.

"Happy Christmas."

"You're such an ass."

He laughed and moved to his bed, where he started reading one of the books I'd bought him. I was silent until the second song came on, and I looked quickly at the artist list.

_Nine Inch Nails…_ The staccato beat was so very familiar, and yet I couldn't remember the exact song.

"_You let me violate you."_

"Edward, you piece of shit." He grinned at me over the top of his book.

"_Help me. The only thing that works for me."_

"Edward, I _swear."_

"Swear what?" His response was too slow for me to answer before

"_I wanna fuck you like an animal._

_I wanna feel you from the inside."_

"My, my, Mary." Edward cackled wickedly.

"Shut the fuck up." I threw one of the hammock's pillows at him, which he let hit him in the head.

After "Closer" ended, a Landon Pigg song began; however, our solitude was interrupted by a call from the staircase.

"Ed, Tessa's here."

"C'mon, love," Edward said, standing up and shutting off the radio.

"Who's Tessa, again?" I asked, climbing out of the hammock.

"You'll see."

Edward hadn't made it halfway down the staircase before a tall, confident brunette girl was grinning in front of him. She had to be my height at least, which was substantial, especially for a woman, and she was wearing a long olive-coloured overcoat.

"Hullo, Edward."

"Hey, Tessa." Edward smiled back at her before pulling her into a tight hug. "Tessa, this is my friend James. James, Tessa Stephenson."

I gave her a small wave. "Hello."

She waved back before turning her attention back to Edward. "D'you two wanna come out on a bit of a Christmas Eve stroll?" she asked, her hand mysteriously appearing on Edward's shoulder.

Edward turned to me, and I shrugged. "I don't see why not," he replied.

"Wonderful."

We bundled up in coats and scarves, and left the house.

* * *

_Edward's mixtape is at /shittysword/from-kenway_


	16. Chapter 16

Tessa Stephenson was absolutely head-over-heels for Edward.

She stayed quite close to him throughout our entire walk, laughing at everything he said, and constantly fussing with the short dark curls that poked out from beneath the olive green stocking cap atop her head.

"How have you been?" she asked as soon as we were out the door. "It's been forever."

Edward shrugged. "I've been a lot better."

Tessa headed off down Edward's long driveway. "Are you and Caroline back together?" Her back was to us.

"Nope." Edward kicked a rock in his path. "We said goodbye, finally, though." He looked at me, and I gave him a little grin before Tessa moved to stand on the other side of him.

"Are you alright?" she asked, putting a gloved hand on his upper arm.

Edward shrugged. "Yeah. It's closure."

Tessa nodded and looked down at her feet as we walked. Eventually, we found ourselves seated in a circle on the cold pavement under the yellow light of a streetlamp, and I found myself bristling more with each of Tessa's movements toward Edward.

_He loves you, Mary. _"Why don't you shave that?" A hand on his cheek.

_Relax. _"You hair is getting so long." Tucking a strand behind his ear.

_Get your fucking hands off him. _I stood up. "Is there anything interesting in there?" I asked, gesturing to the clump of trees off the edge of the road.

Tessa looked up at me. "There's an itty-bitty river," she said with a puzzled look as I offered Edward my hand to help him up. "It's almost all dried up, though."

"Show me."

Tessa clumsily stood up and stomped her feet before trudging off to lead Edward and I into the small woods. I shot Edward an irritated look as we headed off, and was rewarded with an apologetic half-grin.

The moon was close enough to full that we were able to see sufficiently as we walked through the little stand of trees. It was high in the sky, and I realized that it must've been nearing 23:00.

"We should probably head back home after this." Tessa read my mind.

"Yeah." More walking.

"Are you gonna move back here, Edward?" Tessa asked over her shoulder.

"I wasn't planning on it."

"Why?" she responded, slowing her step to fall alongside us again.

"It's too much of a hassle," he said, "and I don't have any reason to."

It was silent for a while before Tessa started talking again. "James, what do you want to do after school?"

"Marine biology." She flinched at my curt reply.

"You still want to join the navy, right, Edward?" Tessa continued.

"Of course."

We came up to the edge of a steep slope. I walked close to the edge while Tessa stood back with Edward.

"How's school?" I looked over the edge.

"Wonderful. This year's been great." Stepping down. "How's it been for you?"

"Pretty awful." I took another step down the icey mud as Tessa took a deep breath. "Are you seeing anyone?"

"Yeah."

My feet slid out from underneath me and I was falling down, down, down, towards the riverbed almost five meters below us. Although it was relatively short, it seemed to take forever to reach the mixture of snow and dirt that made up the riverbed. I was vaguely aware of Edward calling to me in what seemed like a panicked voice. I hit the bottom in a splash of half-frozen mud, which lead to a muttered stream of obscenities; my clothes were now soaked and filthy, and _cold_.

Edward scrambled down the bank as carefully as he could and pulled me to my feet.

"Are you hurt?"

"Only thing that hurts is my pride," I grumbled. "Slipped down a fucking riverbank, Edward; how would youfeel?"

"Jesus, Kidd," he chuckled, helping me dust myself off as best we could, "that was quite a spill. My apologies for actually being _concerned._"

Tessa looked at us in shock as Edward helped me back up the side of the riverbank. "Oh my god, I'm so sorry. Are you alright?"

"Yes," I sighed. "I'm fine."

"I guess we should go back to your house, huh, Ed?"

_Don't you fucking dare call him Ed._

"Yeah. James probably wants to get cleaned up, right?"

I nodded, and we began the trek back to the home of the Kenways. We were all silent for the majority of the time, aside from Tessa's occasional murmured apology and my increasingly impatient reply of "I'm fine." The only real words spoken were at Edward's front door.

"It was nice seeing you," Tessa said bashfully while I awkwardly stood by.

"It was," was Edward's chipper agreement. "We'll have to hang out more while we're still in town."

Tessa nodded and stood in silence for a moment, shifting her weight from one long slender leg to the other. She must've realized that she was keeping a freezing James from a warm shower, because she hugged Edward, said goodbye, and trod off down his driveway, leaving Edward and I to enter the house together.

"So who's she?" I asked, taking off my icey jacket and shoes.

"She lives down the road. I met her the first time I visited my parents." Edward took my jacket and sweatshirt to the washroom.

"She's totally in love with you," I called as I walked up the stairs.

"And I'm totally in love with you."

**ooo**

I had left my laundry on the dark tile floor of the bathroom after Edward had requested I leave the clothes for him to wash. His parents were fast asleep in their bedroom at the other end of the house, and it was around 23:30 when I finally stepped into the comfortingly spacious Roman shower. The Kenways were so kind to install a curtain…

After once again marveling over the architectural beauty of the shower—it was the type where the entire ceiling was the showerhead—I spent a good amount of time mulling over Tessa and her irritating forwardness. My thoughts were interrupted when I heard the bathroom door open.

"Edward?"

"Mhm."

I heard the sound of fabric rustling, assumed that Edward was gathering my clothes to wash, and attempted to go back to being pissed off.

The curtain opened behind me.

"Bloody hell. I didn't know you liked to shower in Satan's piss." I smiled into the water.

"You can't just barge in on a lady's late-night shower with _that_ as a greeting." I turned around to face him. "That practically slaughtered my libido."

I really only had time to think about how happy I was to finally see the entirety of the tattooed canvas that was his body all at once before he had me against the back wall of the shower. He wasn't anywhere near as tender and soft as he had been before; even the bites to my lips and neck were just a bit more feral than usual, and the way he raked his fingers from my shoulder blades down to my hips…

Edward Kenway had an intention, and I was going to make damn sure that he saw it through to the end.

He wanted to kiss me a lot, clearly from the many times that I'd turned my head from him in the past few days. That was fine by me; I loved the taste of him, and had obviously missed it almost as much as me.

The feeling of lips and teeth on my neck reminded me that I'd be waking up with another lovely mark on my neck. He ran one hand from my hip to me knee, prompting me to lift up the leg and hook it around his waist as best I could. The same hand moved back up my leg, and I almost expected Edward to use it on me; however, it found its way back to my hip as he came back to my mouth. The full realization of our current situation hit me with a mixture of fear and excitement as I wrapped my other leg around Edward's.

Edward caught on and helped me reposition myself so that my left leg was wrapped almost completely around his lower back with the other just barely touching the floor. He took his hands off of me and placed them on the wall behind me, letting me flounder with my back to the wall for a moment.

"My back."

"What?"

"Hands on my back, jackass." Edward was laughing as he dropped a hand to the small of my back to steady me while I latched onto him as he suggested.

"_Oh_."

"Better?"

I nodded.

There was borderline clumsy wiggling and movement as we tried to get ourselves to where we needed to be. In the end, Edward briefly put his hands on my hips again to move me to take him in.

Having something that wasn't a tongue or a tampon inside of me for the first time was absolutely the oddest thing I'd ever felt. On one hand, it felt great and it brought a different level of togetherness as our movements automatically matched the other's, from the roll of our hips to the gasps and groans that Edward, arguably, made more often than I did. On the other hand, whose wonderful idea was it to show your love by shoving your dick up some woman's cunt?

Between the angry red scratches and bites on Edward and the dull throbbing from midway up my thighs to just below my hips, by the time we were finished, I had decided that fucking was really fucking weird.

Edward wrapped a towel around his waist and watched me dress with hooded eyes as he leaned against the wall.

"I really love you," he said finally as I started towards the door.

"I know."

**ooo**

After "Closer," the songs on Edward's CD were almost entirely gushy and lovey and so like him. Landon Pigg's "Falling in Love at a Coffee Shop" was followed by "Asleep."

We lay in his bed listening to it while I traced a bite with light fingers and a small smirk. He had abandoned his usual underwear-only sleeping outfit in favor of the slightly warmer combination of sweatpants and a t-shirt, leaving the base of his neck only barely visible to me, and covering all of the scratches.

"Sorry," I muttered when he flinched after I touched a spot wrong.

"You're fine." Edward's eyelids slid shut and he sank deeper into his pillow, hugging me a bit tighter. "Those last couple days were Anne, weren't they?"

"Got it in one."

He grinned lazily, eyes still closed. "I don't even know what to do with her."

"It worked, didn't it?" I asked, running my fingers over the tender skin below his jaw. It was a ticklish spot for him, but he found touches there relaxing all the same.

"Yeah," Edward conceded. "That doesn't mean tha' not bein' able to do anythin' with you up til tonight was any less awful."

I laughed. "That was the point."

"Shut th' fuck up, love," he mumbled.

"Goodnight." I pressed a kiss to his lips, still grinning.

"Merr' Chris'mas."

**ooo**

"_Edward! The Auditore's plane just landed!"_

The sound of Linette calling from the staircase woke us up around 8:30. I rolled out of Edward's arms and stood up, immediately regretting the action.

"_Fuck."_

"What?" Edward sat up and was scrubbing at his eyes drowsily.

"Does it always hurt this much?" Every muscle from my ribcage to my knees was absolutely screaming.

Edward blinked and stared at me blankly for a moment before he remembered. "_Oh._" His brow was marred by deep furrows as he contemplated his answer. "I never was." He shrugged, throwing the blankets off of him. "It puts strain on different things and all that." He pulled off his shirt after standing up and wandered over to his mirror, twisting to try to see how the scratches were looking. "Caroline said she hurt a couple days after."

"It's muscles, not my gee," I clarified. "I ride horses, remember."

"Yeah." Edward continued his contortionist routine in the mirror in an attempt to see every mark I'd left on him. "My mum has Epsom salts, if it doesn't feel better by tonight."

I felt slightly guilty about the scratches, which now looked like wounds from a knife fight. "That would be nice."

Edward nodded and pulled his shirt back on before heading out the door, with me close behind.

"Good morning, you two," Linette said genially when we entered the kitchen. "Did you boys sleep well?"

We nodded and looked over to see what she was cooking. It looked like waffles, which had me only slightly confused as she continued.

"Did either of you hear anything last night?"

Edward frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Your father got up for something to eat around midnight and he said he heard odd noises upstairs." Linette wore a concerned visage.

_Oh my fucking god._

"I was in bed by 23:00," Edward responded innocently. "Did you, James?"

_Jesus. _I shook my head. "I was asleep by ten after, probably." I shrugged. "Maybe it was Desmond."

"Perhaps." Linette gave us each a plate and a waffle before shoo'ing us into the family room for gifts.

"Good morning, boys." Bernard entered shortly after us. "Happy Christmas." We responded in kind.

The gift exchange of the three Kenways was short and sweet. Bernard bought Edward a replica sextant and an antique globe from the eighteenth century, and from Linette he received the DVD collection of the entire American television series _The Walking Dead._

After Edward was chided for not getting his best friend anything for Christmas, I opened my gift from Anne with a small gasp.

"What'd she get you?" Edward asked eagerly, looking over my arm into the small velvet box in my hands.

"A Claddagh ring." I took the little gold ring out of the box and put it on my right ring finger, heart towards the wrist.

"Girls usually wear those," Bernard observed. "Heart points out, anyway."

". . . Unless the wearer is seeing someone," Linette said suggestively. "You and Anne?"

I snorted. "Oh my god. No." Realizing that I'd phrased the response _really_ badly, I continued, "She's my best friend." Everyone nodded understandingly.

"Speaking of," Bernard intoned, "how's Tessa doing?"

"She's fine," Edward said stiffly.

"She's such a cutie," Linette murmured affectionately. "She really is sweet on you, darling."

"Yeah." Edward shot me a dark look as I giggled.

"You two would be so lovely together, you know?"

Edward gave his mother the "I'm sick of hearing that" face. A potentially awkward conversation was easily derailed, however, by the sudden knock on the front door. Edward stood up with a grin and hurried to answer it.

There was a lot of loud noises and stomping and Italian accents. Somewhere in there I heard the front door slam closed, and Edward rounded the corner with his arm slung companionably over the shoulder of a handsome dark boy, his age and a few inches shorter.

"James," he said breathlessly, "this is Ezio."

It was obvious to tell that they were related despite the vast difference in colour palettes. Ezio had the same build as Edward, and wore his dark hair in a similar manner. They held themselves almost identically, and the only differences on their faces was Ezio's slimmer jaw and larger nose. The only visible flaw on his olive skin was the slim scar that went through the right side of his mouth.

_Jesus fuck. _"There's two of you now?"

The shit-eating grin that I'd come to love from Edward was mirrored on Ezio.


	17. Chapter 17

The arrival of the Auditores meant that I was forcibly removed from the room I had been inhabiting. The Auditore parents took up the guest room closest to the master bedroom, while Federico and Petruccio, Ezio's older and younger brothers, respectively, stayed in the room next to Edward's. Ezio's sister Claudia was given my room across from Edward's, being the only apparent girl, and Ezio and I moved into Edward's room. I was allotted the bed, and Ezio slept in the hammock. Edward planned to make do with the floor.

Dinner with the six boisterous Auditores was quite the enjoyable experience. Federico, at nineteen, was comfortably able to choose between which age group he wished to be around, and easily sat in with the younger group. Thirteen-year-old Petruccio seemed to think the world of Ezio and Edward, watching with wide eyes at all of their conversations.

Edward and Ezio were closer than I had seen Edward with anyone. They were almost completely synchronized in their actions, speech, even, it seemed, thoughts. It was incredibly endearing to see them together.

Claudia, one year my junior, seemed immensely interested in me throughout Christmas Day, which, in turn, seemed to confuse most of the other family members. It appeared that she was full-out flirting with me, and it was only through a sharp word from Ezio on occasion that she reigned herself in. It wasn't until the three of us headed upstairs for bed that I found out the significance of it.

"I guess Claudia's finally out of that rut," Ezio observed as he pulled clothes from one of his suitcases.

"What?" I frowned.

"She seemed pretty into James, no?" Ezio gave me a sly grin.

"_What?" _Edward looked up sharply from the nest he was making on the floor.

"Weren't you paying attention?"

"I was a tad caught up in my best mate, thank you."

"Wait," I cut in, "what rut?"

"Claudia's a lesbian," Ezio said after a moment's pause. "Or, she was."

"I'm flattered that you think I could make someone question their sexuality." Edward stifled a laugh.

Ezio looked at him, puzzled. "Care to share?"

"Can we?" Edward gave me a pleading look.

I weighed the pros and cons in my head. There was really no reason to keep it from Ezio. "Why not?" I shrugged.

Edward was giggling childishly as he began. "Funny story about that," he said theatrically, "is that it's happened before."

"Really now?" Ezio raised an eyebrow at us. "I am _so _intrigued."

"I made Edward question his." I grinned wickedly and crossed my arms over my chest.

"Thought I was gay for a whole week."

"A couple people still thought we were when we left," I added, "Though I can vouch that we're anything but."

"Wait," Ezio said. He blinked slowly. "I don't get it."

Edward was laughing as I rolled my eyes comically. "Think Shang and Mulan."

"I don't understand!" The cultural barrier between us was making Ezio extremely confused as he floundered for something to make sense of. "Who is Shang?"

"Jesus." Edward laughed and I flopped back onto his bed.

"He's Jesus?"

I propped myself back up on my elbows. "Let's just watch _She's the Man,_" I suggested. "That'd do it, right?"

"You need to watch it anyway." Edward nodded.

* * *

"I still don't get it."

"Ezio, you're terrible at this game.

Two-ish hours later, Edward and I were on the couch of the game room, while Ezio perched on an armchair, watching the credits of _She's the Man _run on the television. Edward had been laughing throughout the entire film as Ezio's face had changed from varying levels of confusion as I had "ooh"'d at the parallels I found in the movie.

"This is hard. I don't like it." Ezio was kneading his temples.

Edward turned slightly to face me. "He's not usually this stupid." Edward ignored Ezio's indignant shout. "Ey, what was the main character?"

"A girl dressed as a boy." Ezio's eyebrows were together in a tight V.

"Pretty Boy's character was having a…." I couldn't keep the grin off my face as Edward tried to set the pieces in place for Ezio.

"He liked the girl."

"And also…"

"Jesus, Edward, give him a break," I chuckled. "The guy liked Viola as Viola, but also as Sebastian, which kind of gave him a bit of an identity crisis."

Ezio nodded, still frowning intensely. "And this relates to us how?" he asked.

"Good fucking lord, Ezio, this one's a girl." Edward jabbed a thumb at me.

"Oh." Ezio blinked. "_Oh!" _

I laughed. "I hope he's got more brains than that between his eyes."

"Ye of little faith," Edward muttered, leaning back onto me. "He's usually not this bad."

"Wait, so…" Ezio looked between us. "Does that make Edward Duke?"

I raised an eyebrow, but my only answer aside from that was a hand over Edward's junk.

At which point Petruccio walked in and balked at the sight. Eyes wide, he started calling for Federico as Edward leapt up and attempted to stop him.

"Petruccio, give us ten seconds to explain," he said as I moved to close the door. Ezio was kneeling in front of Petruccio, muttering to him in Italian. "The thing is that James is a—"

"James is what?" Federico shoved through the door before I could close it all the way. Ezio straightened up to glower at his older brother before grumbling a string of Italian obscenities.

"Jesus, do you all just have magnets where your brains should be?" I wondered aloud as the older boys' voices raised in volume.

The final Auditore child stepped inside. "Why are you yelling?" Claudia asked irritably. "I'm trying to read next door."

"Buon _cazzo _di Natale," Federico shouted as he turned to exit the room. I was immediately thankful that the parents had decided to go to the cinemas, because Petruccio's shocked look told me that he had said something bad.

"Shut up for a moment, you bloody dagos." The Auditores quieted down at my shout and turned to face me. "Petruccio, Ezio had asked me something about Edward 'n me. That was my way of answering. Edward was _going _to say, I hope, 'James is a girl,' because James is a girl. I'm Mary; nice to meet you. A word of it to anyone outside this room and the lot of you'll be girls, too, and don't ask me why." I inhaled deeply before continuing. "Claudia, your brothers were yelling because of god knows why, so I would ask them if it were me. Ezio, don't do whatever it is that you did to piss off your brother." I smiled brightly. "Are we all good?"

"She knows how to piss standing up," Edward added. "I wouldn't want to do anything that'd upset someone like that."

* * *

We somehow came to the conclusion that a good _Pirates of the Caribbean _marathon would make us get along. Petruccio and Ezio had never seen them before, and they turned out to be the only Auditores that made it through all four films. Petruccio had chosen to snuggle up on Claudia in an overstuffed armchair, and she fell asleep a third through _At World's End,_ around 22:50. Federico excused himself to retire at the beginning of _On Stranger Tides, _and it was only then that I realized that Edward, who was splayed across the loveseat with his head resting on my lap, had been unconscious since Elizabeth's prison break in _Dead Man's Chest. _

"Mary," Ezio muttered eventually. "What if we shaved him?"

"As funny as that might be," I responded thoughtfully, tucking Edward's hair behind his ear, "I'd hate to see his reaction when he woke up."

Ezio was silent until the end of the movie, when Petruccio woke up Claudia to go to bed. Claudia gave me a look whose meaning I couldn't decipher as she walked out of the room, and Ezio looked over to Edward and me again.

"So you two are…"

"Yup," I muttered sleepily, looking over to the clock. It was 1:52. _Jesus._

"And have you…"

"Yup."

Ezio said something in Italian before standing up to turn off the player and television. "I'm going to sleep," he announced.

I shook Edward gently. "Bedtime," I said quietly as his eyelids fluttered open.

He looked over at Ezio, who wore an amused look on his face. "Whatever you're going to say—"

"How quaint to see Edward turned into a kitten by _la belladonna,"_ Ezio snickered.

"It'll be even quainter to see you keep your prick out of this one." Edward stood up and stretched before starting towards the door.

Ezio pouted and grumbled another Italian phrase before following us out of the room.

* * *

At five o'clock, I found out that Ezio snored.

Edward had decided after twenty or so minutes into the night that we were most definitely sharing his bed, reasoning that Ezio knew already, anyway. I'd been on my side facing the wall, and we ended up spooning, which was alright, I supposed.

I woke up eventually with Edward's breath hot on my neck and his dick hard on my ass. Ezio was snoring loudly in the hammock a few meters away, and the way my head was laying on the pillow made it echo uncomfortably loud in my ear. I shifted and wriggled until the sound fell upon only one ear, trying to make the movements small enough to keep from disturbing my bed partner.

Edward sighed deeply and stretched behind me, beginning to wake up. I fell completely still, but he was already awake. He pulled the front of my shirt up a bit and began tracing the skin below my navel, just at the waistline of my sweatpants.

"What time is it?" I whispered, facing the wall still.

"Early."

"How early? You have a clock right behind you."

Edward scoffed lightly, the air tickling my neck. "Early as balls."

"Whatever." I fell silent as I my thoughts wandered. "You and Caroline fucked here." It wasn't a question.

"Yeah," he responded quietly.

"That's so weird to think about," I said. "You guys seemed so normal around each other."

Edward's fingers danced lower. "You've seen me just the same," he mumbled into my neck. "You, of all people, would know what it's like."

"I guess." Edward started feeling around as I continued. "Sex is weird."

"I'm slightly offended." He pressed a kiss to the back of my neck.

"I never said I didn't like it," I muttered as his fingers slid into me. I was incredibly conscious of Ezio snoring not five meters away. "It's just..." Another finger worked the wonderful little button down there as Edward took advantage of my shirt being halfway up my torso and snuck his hand inside of it to find my breast.

"What, now?" he purred into my ear. My hips started moving of their own accord. "How's sex?"

"You're, aah... a jackass, and…" I stifled what would've been a gasp and panted for a moment before I tried to keep talking. "You're going to wake up Ezio."

"Fine then." Edward pulled everything out of my clothes before he pulled me onto my back and started kissing me, moving on top of me before helping me out of my pants. "I can be quiet; can you?"

* * *

"So do you finally want to see _Oldboy?_" I asked Edward as I absently braided Ezio's hair after breakfast.

"I'd damned near forgot about it." Edward grinned at me from across the room. Petruccio and Federico were on the floor between us playing Mario Kart. The Auditores took their Mario Kart very seriously, as Claudia had to be forcefully escorted from the room when she had lost to her graceless elder brother.

"What's that?" Ezio asked, trying to turn around. I thumped the back of his head with my palm before answering.

"Some man was locked up for twenty years with no reason," I explained, finishing off the braid. "We wanted to see it a couple weeks ago."

"Can I come?"

"Of course," Edward chirped. He dug his phone out of his pocket and started looking up times as Ezio crawled back onto the sofa next to me.

The trip to the movie theatre became an affair that Claudia and Federico involved themselves in, and somehow Tessa was invited. The theatre was just outside of the neighborhood, thankfully, so we met Tessa at the end of Edward's driveway and began the walk to the theatre.

"_Dio mio_, I'm freezing," Ezio moaned, pulling his jacket tighter around him.

"Quit your whining," Edward muttered as he pulled the hood of his own coat up over his head. "And walk faster; it'll keep you warmer."

"_Firenze _isn't this cold." Ezio had gone slightly pale, and shoved his now chapped lower lip forward in a pout.

"I didn't fucking ask you to come down here," was Edward's irritated response. Tessa looked shocked at the exchange, but Federico and I grinned, knowing that it was in jest.

"Oh, what did the little _puttana _say?" Ezio responded smartly. "You sounded pretty happy about me being here last night."

"_Vaffanculo."_

"Eduardo, that's what I meant," Ezio said, rolling his eyes. "I didn't want to be so obvious about it."

Federico chortled, and Claudia gave Ezio a small fist bump.

"I would have hoped you'd known it wasn't _you _I was riled up over."

Claudia's eyebrows shot up under her dark bangs, and Federico muttered something in Italian, eyebrow cocked and mouth curled into a grin.

Ezio's nose wrinkled in disgust. "The last thing I wanted to know was that you were loving your lady friend with _me _in the room." He pretended to gag. "_Gesù_. I won't be able to sleep tonight."

Tessa tried not to look hurt. She really did. The slender girl bit her lip and furrowed her brow and blinked hard. The tears forming in her eyes weren't a result of the wind, no matter how much she wanted to attribute them to it. She tried to cover it up with a yawn and wiped at her eyes with the heel of her hand.

And I was the only one who saw it.


End file.
